The nascent collaborative robot market grew by more than 60% in 2018, according to a recent research report by Interact Analysis. The industry was worth less than $400 million in 2017 but grew to nearly $600 million in 2018, said the research firm. The infographic below includes some interesting findings about the cobot market.

Shipments and revenues of collaborative robots are forecast to grow rapidly over the next five to 10 years. Until relatively recently, the supply of cobots has been limited to a handful of suppliers, most notably Universal Robots.

However, virtually every major industrial robot vendor is now pursuing this sector with its own cobot solution.

Universal Robots continued to dominate the collaborative robot industry in 2018, although we estimate its market share dipped a little. Yet despite the exit of cobot pioneer Rethink Robotics, UR faces an increasing number of challengers, and the fledgling industry remains fragmented.

Cobot market to rely on SMEs

Deployment of cobots has been largely limited to small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) to date. These SMEs within the manufacturing sector are very diverse and large in number, yet only require a small number of collaborative robots at their facilities.

Interact Analysis predicts that larger OEMs will also begin adopting cobots in the next two years, which will drive significant growth.

Rather than taking share from traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots are enjoying success in new markets and applications that haven’t been well covered or serviced by traditional industrial robots. As a result, the total cobot market increasing overall because of the following factors:

• The overall cost of installation and system integration is lower for cobots.
• Cobots can be used in standalone and individual workstations and do not need to be integrated more deeply into a total production line. They can simply be wheeled into a new position and programmed in a new task quickly.
• Less training and engineers are needed for cobot programming

Due to these factors, annual revenues of collaborative robots are forecast to reach $7.6 billion in 2027, accounting for 29% of the industrial robot market.

About Interact Analysis:

Interact Analysis is an international provider of market research for the intelligent automation sector and has offices across the world, including the U.S., the U.K., and China. Our team of respected industry analysts delivers high levels of market intelligence and quality data. Our analysts have an average of 15 years of industry experience, and our trusted leadership team has close to 100 years’ experience in technology-based research.