The European Cobot Market at the End of the Pandemic
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The pandemic seems to be coming to an end sooner or later in Europe, depending on the risk assessment. Time to consider what impact the pandemic has had on robotics.?
Economic development
In the first year of the pandemic, i.e. 2020, there was a sharp drop in economic output in all European countries. The main reason for this was the shock, including plant closures as a protective measure and lockdowns. In 2021, the economy recovered, although the previous level has not yet been reached again. The reason was further closures and also the shortage of materials. However, the economy has recovered in the meantime, but is still below the level before the start of the pandemic. This may be due - especially in Germany - to the previously unknown supply bottlenecks. In 2021, various car manufacturers had to close their plants for weeks. The German automaker VW produced as few cars at its main site in Wolfsburg as it last did more than 60 years ago. In the meantime, numerous sectors have been affected by supply bottlenecks. However, the mood is positive in most sectors of the manufacturing industry.
Some of the main industries relevant to robotics are very optimistic. Mechanical engineering is expecting another peak year and should have generated more revenue at the end of 2022 than before Corona. In addition, there is the transformation of the vehicle industry with a correspondingly large number of investments in new production facilities for electromobility including battery production. In return, there is hardly any investment in the production of combustion engines. Nevertheless, there is still some cobot potential here as well. An example of this is the Fiat 500 use case, whose assembly is supported by 11 cobots. This is also because the average age of Fiat workers is steadily increasing, making ergonomics more important. This is likely to be true of almost all automotive plants in Europe except one.?
The development of the gross domestic product of important countries in Europe shows that countries with a particularly severe slump in 2020 grew more strongly in 2021 than those with a more moderate slump. Optimism for 2022 appears to be more important: A positive growth expectation is significant for two reasons: On the one hand, rising revenues make it easier to implement price increases, so that profits then also rise, and even more so, a positive assessment can be cited as the most important prerequisite for investment. The German state bank KfW published a survey on the investment behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises in October 2021. 62% of the companies then expand their investments if the sales expectation for their own company is positive. Conversely, 43% of companies reduce their investments when revenues are falling.
China – ELITE ROBOTS
After his re-election, our Federal President Steinmeier said that the West had come through the pandemic best. Now he probably did not think about China. Germany more than 200,000, the USA (after all, four times more inhabitants, often overweight) had about 1 million dead.
While Europe was paralyzed for a while, normality prevailed in China for the most part. The up-and-coming cobot manufacturer ELITE ROBOT , a partner in this article, even built a new large manufacturing facility and closed another round of financing.
Has consumer behavior changed as a result of the pandemic?
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been "winner" and "loser" industries. The "winners" just in 2020 included all industries that promote protection and/ or entertainment of the individual. These included leisure sectors such as two-wheelers (bicycles, also with electricity as well as motorcycles), mobile homes and also consumer electronics. Construction suppliers were also among the winners. During the lockdown, do-it-yourselfers became active. On the other hand, gastronomy and culture lost out, suffering and still suffering from the often strict regulations imposed by the state. Sometimes they were closed completely, then they were only allowed to serve vaccinated people. Culture still suffers from regional limitations. The restaurant industry was and still is financially compensated, but is likely to suffer a lasting exodus of its staff.
The pandemic has also shown that companies are unlikely to change their operations even in the face of severe staff shortages and extreme capacity constraints: Corona test labs in particular were very busy, but did not automate.?
Do classic payback calculations still apply?
One thing is clear about cobots: their low price is still unknown to many. Many smaller entrepreneurs think that a cobot, including programming and accessories, costs more like €200,000. More educational work is needed here. However, even many small businesses, when presented with the true price of cobots, do not immediately purchase a robot. They often take a long time to make a decision. This is especially true if the cobot changes existing processes. Because if something doesn't work then, they have a big problem. Many prefer the safe status quo.
How has the European cobot market developed?
Significant for robotics was the cancellation of almost all trade fairs and often the dates of visits. Many entrepreneurs see a cobot for the first time at a trade fair beforehand. This opportunity for often casual viewing was eliminated. Companies rarely buy cobots online or on the phone. They first want to meet their contacts and learn more about robotics. To do this, they want assurance that there is a custom solution that is just right for them. For the most part, this was not possible in 2020. Regional network meetings at which entrepreneurs exchange information with each other were also not possible. After the first wave, which lasted until the end of May, the second wave began in October 2020. This was associated with a ban on visits to companies and ultimately a lack of willingness to make new contacts. On the other hand, sales employees of large robotics companies complained that they were not allowed to travel. Customer appointments were only approved by headquarters with good reasoning. Trade shows were practically non-existent until today, at best virtual. However, the usefulness of virtual trade shows was very limited.?In China, trade fairs could take place as usual. However, travel from abroad was hardly possible.
Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, sales of robotics plummeted massively. From the 3rd quarter of 2020, the development improved significantly and since then new sales records have been achieved. Since its market share in Europe is unlikely to have changed much, its development is exemplary for the cobot industry. In relative terms, the importance of cobots stagnated worldwide in 2020.
Development in Great Britain
At the start of the pandemic, Universal Robots' then-new Scottish distributor, SP Automation & Robotics, announced plans to sell ￡1 million worth of cobots in the first year of working together. For a country with a population of only 5.5 million, this is a considerable sum. Since the company has been busy uploading cobot videos over the past two years, it should have been quite successful. This shows that an established company can launch a new product even in more difficult circumstances.
WMH Transmissions, the Universal Robots dealer with the largest showroom in the UK, earns less than €6 million. The preliminary balance sheet figures show a recently stagnating development.
Overall, the development in the UK thus appears to have been stable. In contrast to Germany, however, there seems to be less competition in the UK. The companies founded in Germany, Franka Emika, Yuanda, Neura Robotics, Agile Robots or RobCo, are almost unknown. And startups like Kassow Robots still seem to have a weak base in the UK.
Portugal: Country with considerable market share of ELITE ROBOTS
Portugal seems to be a special country for the robotics and cobot industry. On the one hand, only 10 million people live in the country - and then with their own language. On the other hand, there are many interesting manufacturing companies in Portugal, especially in electronics and precision mechanics.
Italy: Automationware invested heavily in cobots
Automation specialist Automationware (Venice) did not go into shock during the pandemic but invested in new partnerships. First it became a partner of ELITE ROBOTS, the partner of this article, and most recently of Geek+.?In the video, Automationware presents the Cobot as a proprietary development, but I assume it is an ELITE ROBOT.
Globalized companies had an advantage
Germany is home to many accessory companies in addition to some robot manufacturers. Schunk, Zimmer, Sensopart and many more are now compatible with various Chinese brands. Since ELITE ROBOT is configured like Universal Robots out of the box, some manufacturers were able to benefit from the more stable Chinese market without conversion.
Which robot manufacturers are preferred?
Presumably because demand for cobots in the individual countries is still too low, there is no detailed breakdown by cobot manufacturer and country. However, it seems noteworthy that the market leader in cobots, Universal Robots, appears ahead.
领英推荐
# Spain Netherland Portugal France Italy
Kuka 60 17 74 20
Fanuc 56 11 17 95 21
ABB 48 14 28 83 26
St?ubli 75
Universal Robots 31 8
Automotive 54% 58% 45%
Food & Beverage 48% 35% 36%
Pharma & Chemistry 35%
Metal & Machinery 34% 30% 60% 32%
Logistics 50%
Electronic & Technology 41% 31%
Aerospace 39%
Energy 36%
Defense & Military 29%
Source: Interact Analysis
High demand can be met
So now the sales that had actually already been expected for 2019 are occurring. More astonishing than the sales development itself appears the extensive ability to deliver in times of chip shortage.
From today's perspective, Germany and Eastern Europe have above-average growth potential in Europe. It should be borne in mind here that it is not only the expected growth that counts, but also the starting point. This is likely to have been quite low everywhere. In absolute terms, the potential in Eastern Europe - and especially in Poland - is likely to be greater than in Italy. In Italy, on the other hand, the bulk of the cobots seem to be sellable in the north of the country. It is also important to note that the survey was conducted before the take-off of electromobility and the construction of new chip plants in Europe. In Germany in particular, a great deal is currently being invested in battery production and also further chip plants. This means that growth here could be even higher.
The further prospects for Cobot sales are very good. When differentiating by country, the typical industrial structure in the countries is also likely to be important. Are there more large-scale or small-scale production?
Workstations gain in importance
New Cobot customers in particular welcome complete offers. Ideally, one contact person sells them a complete workstation. This ensures cost transparency, one contact person, lower risk and simpler processes in themselves. Complete welding cells, palletizing stations and placement robots are particularly worthy of mention. For the supplier, this offers the possibility of scaling; he only has to coordinate a system once. Any fine-tuning at the customer's site takes far less time. For the cobot manufacturer, this also offers the possibility of scaling, of reducing the workload, but also the risk of interchangeability. Brand-strong cell suppliers don't even name the cobot manufacturer. I.e. they could replace it at any time. This is not surprising; a metal processor who has been buying welding tables from Demmeler for decades trusts Demmeler when he buys its welding cell. He is only interested in the fact that a Universal Robot is installed in it if he has already known Cobots before.
New providers
Online platforms increasingly appeared during the pandemic. However, their emergence probably occurred independently of the pandemic. It was simply time. After all, cobots or robots are still not bought at the click of a mouse. For initial contact, however, a good online presence including pricing offers the opportunity to reduce the inhibition threshold to contact. There are about a handful of manufacturer-independent online providers. The business models differ:
Individual robot manufacturers offer online solutions themselves. ABB and igus are worth mentioning, and Doosan has an integrator online.