Broken down by industry, India´s automotive sector is the main end user with a share of 62 percent of the total supply in 2017. Sales rose by 27 percent (2016-2017).

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

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

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

India is one of the strongest growing economies among emerging Asian markets. Since 2009, the number of robot installations has been growing rapidly. In 2017, India ranked No. 14 in terms of the global annual supply, immediately behind Thailand and Spain. As far as the operational stock is concerned, India ranked thirteenth after Canada, Spain and Singapore.

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