“The automotive industry will remain the main driver of the increasing robot installations in India,” says Junji Tsuda, President of the International Federation of Robotics. “Numerous new projects are announced by the international and domestic car manufacturers aiming to expand production capacities. Moreover, OEMs increasingly require local supply of automotive parts.”

General industry is catching up

A clear sign the general industry is catching up with the automotive sector can be seen by the sales numbers of industrial robots in, i.e., the rubber and plastics industry, the metal industry and the electrical and electronics industry, which increased by 46 per cent in 2017.

“The general industry will further invest in production capacities and modernization to serve this growing consumer market,” says IFR President Junji Tsuda. “Therefore, an accelerated and strong robot sales growth is expected between 2018 and 2021.”

India is one of the strongest growing economies among the Asian emerging markets. Since 2009, the number of robot installations has been growing rapidly. In 2017, India ranked No. 14 regarding the global annual supply, following Thailand and Spain. Regarding the operational stock, India ranked thirteenth following Canada, Spain and Singapore.

India’s automation potential is illustrated by a rather low robot density figure: 85 industrial robots per 10,000 employees in the automotive industry is less than a fourth of Indonesia´s density (378 units) and far away from China´s (505 units).