Demand for service robots seen at breakthrough - industry body

Kawada Technologies

12/10/2016 13:40

FRANKFURT, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Demand for service robots is 
expected to accelerate in the next three years as robots - 
already used to perform tasks such as assisting medical surgery, 
milking cows or moving objects around warehouses - become more 
popular for domestic and personal use. 
    Global turnover of service robots - which include robots 
that can mow the lawn or clean windows - is forecast to increase 
to about $46 billion in the 2016-2019 period, compared with 
about $7 billion in 2015, the International Federation of 
Robotics said on Wednesday. 
    Service robots, which perform tasks useful for humans and 
are often mobile, are distinguished from industrial robots, 
which are used in automated manufacturing and are normally kept 
in cages on factory floors. 
    Industrial robots, with global sales worth an estimated $46 
billion including software and systems last year alone, are 
still a far bigger market, but growth that has been driven by 
Chinese demand is slowing.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N1C51GZ 
    "The demand for service robots is seeing a historic 
breakthrough," IFR President Joe Gemma said in a statement. 
    "In addition to the already established business with 
professional service robots the personal and domestic segment is 
increasingly dynamic." 
    Major players in service robotics include Intuitive Surgical 
 ISRG.O , iRobot Corporation  IRBT.O  and Google  GOOGL.O  of 
the United States, China's DJI and Germany's Kuka  KU2G.DE . 
Several hundred start-ups are also active in the market. 
    Robots for professional and for personal and domestic use 
are seen as accounting for roughly equal shares of the service 
robotics market through 2019. 
    In the professional field, sales of medical robots rank 
ahead of agricultural and then logistics applications. 
    The faster-growing personal and domestic market is dominated 
by household robots such as vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and 
window cleaners. Demand for entertainment robots including toys 
and hobby systems is also growing fast. 
    Sales of humanoid robots as human companions for everyday 
tasks have until now not been significant, after the first ones 
were shipped in 2004 to international laboratories and 
universities for research and development. 
    But about 8,000 are expected to be sold through 2019 as 
companies including Japan's Honda  7267.T , Kawada  3443.T  and 
Toyota  6201.T  develop them beyond the toy and leisure stage. 
 
 (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Adrian Croft) 
 ((georgina.prodhan@thomsonreuters.com; +49 69 7565 1279; 
Reuters Messaging: 
georgina.prodhan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: ROBOTS SERVICES/