In recent years, perceptions of China’s role in global economics have shifted. China used to be seen as a huge and important sales market for cars and machines ‘made in Europe’. However, in the past three decades, industrial production in China has developed impressively. Strong economic expansion has also significantly boosted China's value-added manufacturing. As of 2023, China leads the global rankings in machinery manufacturing, generating sales of 1,280 billion euros. The USA follows in second place with 445 billion euros, while the European Union's machinery manufacturers collectively had a turnover of 890 billion euros.
We are all aware of it: competition is intensifying, not only within China but also in other markets (e.g. Europe, the rest of Asia, and Africa). Following their first post-pandemic trips to China, many companies observed substantial advancements in Chinese mechanical engineering, with the country making considerable progress in both technology and quality, at times even surpassing its competitors. Chinese manufacturers have always been faster to market and more cost-effective. What’s more recent is their push into export markets. Since 2020, China has been the world’s largest exporter of machines and systems, with this trend continuing to rise sharply. Like many things in China, this massive export growth is no coincidence, but rather a state-directed and promoted strategy.
China – the world’s largest robotics market
According to the figures of the IFR (International Federation of Robotics), China is, by far, already the world´s largest market for industrial robots. In 2023, 541,302 industrial robots were installed in factories around the world (-2% in comparison to 2022, year-on-year) and 51% (276,288 units) were installed in China alone. On average, annual robot installations have grown by 13% each year (2017-2022). To serve this dynamic market, domestic and international robot suppliers have established production plants in China and continuously increased capacity.
Over the past decade, China has become an important export country for the European machine vision industry. According to the VDMA Market Survey Machine Vision, China superseded North America as the main export market of machine vision from Germany for the first time in 2017, and exports continued to increase until 2020. In 2023, exports to Asia still accounted for 21% of sales of the European machine vision industry, with China accounting for 35% of the machine vision turnover in Asia. However, sales were down by 29% in 2023. Looking at figures published by CMVU (China Machine Vision Industry Alliance), the Chinese machine vision industry quickly recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic and further accelerated its development in 2023 by ‘only’ 10.7 %!
Without any doubt, the machine vision industry in China has been developing impressively over the past decade. The Vision China Shanghai Show – taking place usually every March, as part of Laser World of Photonics – has developed impressively over the past years, not only regarding number of visitors and exhibitors, but also illustrated by the professional presentation and innovative force of the Chinese players. Chinese companies present themselves with more and more visibility at trade shows, not only in China, but also abroad.
At VISION 2024, 55 exhibitors from China participated. That means: every 10th exhibitor came from China (share of 11%). At Automatica 2023, a Chinese /CMVU Pavilion was organised for the first time. As can be seen in the CMVU Market Study, about 70% of participating companies plan to expand into overseas markets in the future. Consequently, Chinese companies have been increasingly building up distribution channels, presence, and capacities in Europe and Asia. As a result, competition will continue to intensify worldwide.
VDMA Robotics + Automation association, with more than 400 member companies from Europe and its sector group VDMA Machine Vision, will continue to work to strengthen the European industry in response.