According to
Interact Analysis’ newly published
Collaborative Robot Market – 2024 report, the collaborative robot (cobot) market revenue grew by 11.9% to $1.07 billion in 2023, breaching the $1 billion milestone. There was a small ‘V-shaped’ trajectory for cobot sales in 2022-2024. After bottoming out in 2020, the cobot market experienced a startling recovery in 2021, with growth of over 35% taking it beyond its 2019 market size. However, poor economic conditions and supply chain issues placed great pressure on the market in 2022 and 2023, which culminated in a new post-pandemic growth low-point in 2023.
The pandemic highlighted the shortcomings of relying on labour in manufacturing, and accelerated automation upgrades to make enterprises more resilient in the face of possible future crises in the logistics and service industries. This is going to be a long-term positive for the robotics industry as a whole and will be a driver of around 20% average revenue growth over the forecast period (2024-2028).
The average market price of cobots slightly increased in 2023, mainly due to a significant increase in shipments of larger payload models, especially in the more than 20kg group in the third quarter of 2023, and it is expected that rising demand for heavy-duty models will become more apparent during the forecast period. The latest data shows that average market prices will increase by 4.4% compared with 2023 by 2028.
However, the driving forces behind overall price declines are clearly evident in cost reductions brought about by economies of scale and maturing industrial supply chains. In the Chinese market, which accounts for more than half of global shipments, the price decline trend is still significant.
The development of collaborative robots is gradually transitioning from general-purpose products to segmented models for specific application scenarios. This trend reflects growing demand in the market for more specialised cobots in different industries.
Strong growth is predicted in shipments through to 2028 and beyond, with price declines slowing as cobots become more intelligent and capable of carrying greater payload. While logistics applications are currently leading the market, growth is also expected in non-industrial sectors and in areas such as welding, where the full market potential has not been exploited.