China Leads Growth of Global Industrial Robot Stock

According to the latest World Robotics report published by the International Federation of Robotics, a record number of 553,000 industrial robots were newly installed last year, as the global operational stock climbed to 3.9 million by the end of 2022. Once again, Asia was the biggest growth driver, with 73 percent of newly deployed robots installed in Asia.

As our chart shows, China alone accounted for more than half of new installations in 2022, making it by far the largest market in the world. With just over 50,000 new installations, Japan came second last year, followed closely by the United States and South Korea. Japan is also the largest manufacturer of industrial robots, according to IRF, accounting for 46 percent of global production in 2022.

While China is the largest market in absolute terms and in terms of growth, South Korea and Japan are ahead of the world’s manufacturing superpower in terms of robot density, i.e. installed robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers. According to the IFR, South Korea had 1,000 installed robots per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry, compared to 399 for Japan and 322 for China.