On October 27, 2018, ABB announced that it would invest US$150 million to build a world-leading robot factory in Kangqiao , Shanghai, to expand production capacity, improve efficiency, and consolidate its leading market position. As the core of economic development and technological innovation that we strive to cultivate, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is becoming a gathering place for emerging industrial resources. After Midea Group spent 3.2 billion euros to acquire KUKA of Germany, it invested in the construction of an intelligent manufacturing base covering an area of 1,200 acres in Shunde in March this year. KUKA said that it will introduce dozens of upstream and downstream partners by "driving every family and everyone". On September 8, Yang Guoqiang, chairman of the board of directors of Country Garden Group, a well-known domestic real estate developer, said that the company plans to invest 80 billion yuan in five years to build a "Robot Valley" in Shunde. In addition, ABB, FANUC, and Yaskawa among the “four major families” have all completed their assembly in the Greater Bay Area.
According to incomplete statistics, as of 2017, there are more than 30 robot industrial parks in China; there are more than 6,500 related companies; and there are more than 100 listed companies with robot concepts. Alibaba , Baidu, Tencent , Xiaomi and other Internet companies have also entered the robot industry. It is believed that investment enthusiasm for the robotics industry will continue. In fact, this high-density industrial aggregation is just a microcosm of the rush to launch robots across the country.
The market is showing rapid growth
According to statistics from the China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China's industrial robot market sales continued to grow in 2017, with cumulative sales of 141,000 units throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 58.1%. The growth rate hit a record high. Among them, 37,800 domestic robots were sold, a year-on-year increase of 29.8%; foreign-invested robots were sold 103,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 71.9%. Compared with the previous year, the sales growth rate of domestic industrial robots was basically stable, and the sales growth rate of foreign brands accelerated significantly. The proportion of foreign-funded robots in the total market sales was 73.2%, an increase of 5.9 percentage points from the previous year. The market share of domestic industrial robots dropped to less than 27%, a year-on-year decrease of 6 percentage points, the first decline in five years.
At present, the "four major families" (ABB, KUKA, FANUC, and Yaskawa) are the world's major industrial robot suppliers, accounting for about 50% of the global market share. In 2017, ABB achieved revenue of 224.201 billion yuan and net profit of 14.46 billion yuan in the field of industrial robots, making it the largest company. Fanuc achieved revenue of 42.917 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.41%, with the fastest revenue growth, and net profit of 10.75 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%. Yaskawa Electric achieved revenue of 26.491 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.51%, and net profit of 2.463 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 97.04%, with the fastest profit growth. KUKA achieved revenue of 26.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.92%, and net profit of 672 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.09%.
In 2017, the total operating income of 70 domestic conceptual robot listed companies reached 455.074 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35%, and the total net profit reached 25 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 10%. Among them, the operating income data of seven listed robot companies in recent years (see Table 1) show that in the first three quarters of 2018, the operating income of Eston , Robot, Innovator Technology all increased by more than double digits year-on-year. Among them, Eston ranked first among the four companies with a growth rate of 60%. However, the output value of Huichuan Technology , which has the largest operating revenue, is still less than one-fifth of that of Yaskawa Electric, which ranks last among the "four major families". Only the operating income of Yuanda Intelligent declined year-on-year in all statistical measures.
Table 1 Total operating income of seven listed robot companies (from 2015 to the first three quarters of 2018)
core components are still shortcomings
The development of industrial robots mainly depends on servo systems, controllers, core algorithms, reducers and application integration technologies ability. Although domestic companies in core components have made certain progress at this stage, there is still a gap compared with foreign products, especially the reducer .
In 2017, the gross profit margin of Japan's FANUC industrial robot products was 45.2%, and the R&D intensity was 5.8%; the gross profit margin of KUKA industrial robot products was 21.7%.Judging from the self-sufficiency level of upstream core components, in the robot cost structure, reducers, servo motors and controllers account for about 70% to 80% of the total cost, of which reducers account for about 30% to 40%. For upstream components The degree of control affects the profitability of the product. Japan's Nabo RV reducer and Harmonic reducer monopolize 75% of the global market share, and are more like the de facto winners in the field of robotics.
Although the current fever in the field of domestic robots is hard to get rid of, academic research and basic technology still need to make breakthroughs. Industry insiders pointed out that due to the rush for robots, vicious competition in the industry has emerged, resulting in continued decline in gross profit margins and low industry concentration. In addition, since there is no unified standard in the industry and there are no policy subsidies, the early research and development of the entire robot industry is in the "burning money" stage, and the pressure to realize is high (see Table 2).
Table 2: The operating gross profit margin of seven listed robot companies (2016 to the first half of 2018)
Among the seven companies, the sales of four companies including New Era, Huichuan Technology , Huachanda , Yuanda Intelligent Gross profit margin is declining year by year. Among the main business components of the seven listed companies, the only robot parts and bodies with gross profit margins exceeding 45% are Inovance Technology inverters accounting for 46.72% (accounting for 47.96% of the main revenue) and motion control accounting for 45.72% ( Accounting for 19.55% of main revenue), control technology products accounted for 48.01% (accounting for 5.18% of main revenue). It can be seen that the core technology of key components has a decisive impact on added value.
Industry insiders pointed out that it is very difficult to carry out basic research in China, and funds are the biggest constraint. Without continuous financial support, technological research and development at the enterprise level can only be carried out piecemeal. At this time, considering the profit-seeking nature of venture capital, the role of the state's guidance fund is particularly important.
Due to the technological gap between domestic enterprises and the "four major families", domestic brands are more focused on system integration applications, with low technical content and meager profits, resulting in the phenomenon of low-end high-end industries (see Table 3).
Table 3 Operating profit margins of seven listed robot companies (from 2015 to the first three quarters of 2018)
The data shows: Boshi, Robot and Huichuan Technology are companies with operating profit margins that can maintain double digits according to statistical standards. Among them, Huichuan Technology ’s profit margins all maintain above 20%; Newstar, The profit margins of Huachanda and Yuanda Intelligent continue to decline. It can be said that there are two heavens of ice and fire.
How long can purchase technology last?
Globally, industries are engaged in frequent mergers and acquisitions to acquire core technologies and core manufacturing resources. The same is true for the domestic robot industry. However, as the external environment changes, "purchaseism" may become increasingly difficult.
In June 2017, Boshi Co., Ltd. announced that its holding subsidiary Harbin Boao Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. completed the acquisition of 100% equity of the Austrian legal person P&P Industrietechnik GmbH. P&P Industrietechnik GmbH's main business is the planning, construction, engineering design, equipment assembly, equipment debugging, operation and supervision of factories and facilities, as well as the provision of various systems for the factory, such as electrical controls, pipelines, automation , and heat treatment facilities.
In September 2017, Eston announced that it planned to sign an equity acquisition agreement and invest 8.869 million euros to acquire 50.01% of the equity of the German company M.A.i., and would have priority to acquire the remaining shares. M.A.i.'s main business is to provide highly automated, information-based and intelligent assembly and testing production lines based on robot applications.
In April 2017, Eston announced that it planned to acquire 30% equity of the American high-tech company Barrett Technolo-gy through a wholly-owned subsidiary for US$9 million. Barrett is a high-tech company located in Massachusetts, USA. It was derived from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) artificial intelligence laboratory. It focuses on the research and manufacturing of micro servo drives and human-machine collaborative intelligent robots.
On January 31, 2018, Xinsong Robot announced that it had acquired 80% of the equity of the company established by South Korea's SHINSUNG automation business for 104 billion won (approximately 640 million yuan).
It should be said that the competitiveness of the robot industry is determined by the comprehensive technological development level and is an important indicator of national innovation capabilities and industrial competitiveness. Vigorously developing industrial robots will help improve the quality and efficiency of China's manufacturing industry, and is of great significance for promoting the energy level of China's equipment industry and injecting strong impetus into economic development. However, the domestic development of the high-tech industry of robots is no different from the development of traditional industries in terms of model. At present, domestic robot system integrators are generally small in scale and have low annual output value. Most of them hope to embed robot concepts into their business structure through acquisitions in order to seek "concept premiums."
If the industry is to truly form a competitive advantage and needs the overall continuous improvement of system innovation capabilities, then it seems necessary to connect and integrate relatively high-quality resources in isolated, scattered, and thin industries.
Source: China Industry News
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