China's spending on robotics to hit $59.4b in 2020: IDC

Robot Jia Jia displays at the 2016 World Robot Exhibition in Beijing, Oct 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

SHANGHAI - International Data Corp (IDC) reports that China will be spending $59.4 billion on robotics and related services by 2020.

As the largest and the fastest growing robotics market in the world, China will account for over 30 percent of all robotics spending in 2020, according to a press release published on IDC's website.

Manufacturing continues to dominate China spending on robotics, it said.

"China continues to lead the adoption of robotics globally, primarily driven by strong spending growth in process manufacturing and cross-industry applications," Zhang Jingbing, research director with IDC Worldwide Robotics and Asia Pacific Manufacturing Insights, said in the press release.

"In China, we are also seeing accelerated growth in commercial service robots especially for automated material handling in factories, warehouses and logistics facilities," Zhang added.

By 2020, China's spending on robotic systems including industrial, service and consumer robots will grow to $29 billion, while services-related spending involving application management, education and training, hardware deployment is expected to surpass $15.8 billion.