Market share of robot

Japan accounts for 52% of the world's robot market!

The market size of robot in Japan is about 800 billion yen(about 8 billion dollars) according to the report of Japan Robot Association in 2017. Robots for export are about 600 billion yen and another for domestic market. Japan made about 160 thousand robots, that has doubled in ten years. Japan accounts for 52% of the production number of robots in the world. Japanese robots manufactures expect increasing productions because of demand in China.

The business of commercial robot is calssified into three types, industry robot, service robot and business-use drone. The market of indutry robot is largest market among them. Articulated robot(Multi-articulated robot) and electric part mounting machine are calssified into industry robot. An industry robots are spread even more because it is developed by AI technology though an industry robot is already spread over Japanese manufacturing industry.

In addition, factory automation is widely used in only automobile industry and electrical machinery industry. Industry robots are mainly used for welding, assembling, polishing and coating. It is said that they will be used other industry by improving control technology and image recognition technology. For example, medicine and cosmetics industry are proactive in begining to use industry robots.

Japan is the world's largest exporter of robots, Fanac Corporation which is lifeblood of Japanese robot market pulls the robot market. Fujitsu which is Japanese IT company separated its NC(Numerical value Controller) business to a newly established Fanac in 1972. It became the largest manufacturer of articulated robot in Japan. Especially its welding robots for automobile industry are very popular.

YASKAWA Electric Corporation is also account for a large share of robots in the world. It was established to develop and manufacture electrical appliances for mining industry focus on coal mining by Keiichiro Yasukawa in 1915. Its arc welding robot is popular for automobile industry and liquid crystal industry in the world. It was the first robot manufacturer to open a factory for robots in China. Nachi-Fujikoshi Corporation and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd are also popular as robot manufacturer.

By the way, the domestic demand of robots increase in recent years though it was falling untuil 2010s. Attention was focus again on robots because of labor shortage especially after 2014. Japanese govenment published the tax system to encourage investment in robots to deal with labor shortage in 2014. It also relaxed robot regulation of safety at the end of 2013. Japanese robot manufacturers release and sell more and more co-robot(collaborative robot) after 2014.

In additon, Japanese METI(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) pubished the new growth strategy of robot to support and boost company's introducing robots in 2015. METI promotes demonstration tests of robot for many industry which do not introduce robots. It focuses on non‐manufacturing industry, such as agricultural industry, fishing industry, food service industry and more. The domestic robot market will grow as well as the world's robot market.

Fanac and Yaskawa are listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Foreign investors can invest in them on NYSE by ADR(American Depositary Receipt). In addition, they can do them through many ETFs, MAXIS Nikkei 225 ETF(NKY), iShares MSCI Japan ETF(EWJ), Wisdomtree Japan Hedged ETF(DXJ) and more.