China Accounted for 59 Percent of All New Industrial Robots Worldwide, IFR Report Shows

China Accounted for 59 Percent of All New Industrial Robots Worldwide, IFR Report Shows

The International Federation of Robotics' (IFR) latest world report shows that China accounted for 59 percent of all new industrial robots in 2025, while Germany's installations fell for the third year in a row – and German robot production plunged 24 percent.

When European competition authorities in 2016 gave the Chinese appliance conglomerate Midea the green light to acquire the German robot manufacturer Kuka, the sale was seen as an aggressive market move. Ten years later, Kuka is being used by The New York Times as the very symbol of a power shift: Germany can no longer keep pace with China in the buildout of factory robots, the newspaper wrote on Thursday, September 24, 2026 – the same day the IFR (International Federation of Robotics) launched its World Robotics 2026 report.

The numbers behind the picture are largely clear, at least as presented in the IFR's own press releases, which constitute the available documentation base for the report.

A record year globally – with China at the center

The global population of operational industrial robots grew by 9 percent to a record 5 million units in 2025, according to the IFR (https://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2026-09/69666765-international-federation-of-robotics-five-million-robots-now-operate-in-factories-globally-004.htm). The driving force was an 11 percent increase in annual installations: factories around the world installed more than 600,000 new robots during the year.

China accounts for the bulk of this growth. The country installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, an increase of 20 percent from the year before, and thus 59 percent of all global installations. That is the major detail that makes the rest of the world – and Europe in particular – appear ever smaller by comparison.

The relationship to Germany can be calculated directly from the IFR's own figures: 354,000 versus 24,842 gives a factor of roughly 14.3. This is what The New York Times captures in its headline "In a Race With China, German Robots Are Outnumbered 14 to 1" (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/business/robots-china-germany-factories.html). The newspaper's exact calculation is not visible in the available text, but the ratio is consistent with the IFR figures and should be understood as a comparison of annual installations.

The German side: fall after fall

Germany installed 24,842 industrial robots in 2025, a decline of 8 percent, according to the IFR's own press release on the German market (https://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2026-09/69666750-international-federation-of-robotics-germany-installed-41-percent-of-the-eu-s-industrial-robots-004.htm). That corresponds to 41 percent of the EU's total installations – Germany remains the EU's largest robot market, but the trend points downward, and the IFR expects demand to fall again in 2026.

Even more far-reaching is the development within the German robot industry itself. Production of industrial robots fell 24 percent, to 23,710 units in 2025. Exports fell 37 percent, to 15,096 units. That means Germany's industrial core – the country that long exported automation to the rest of the world – is shrinking at the same time as Chinese manufacturers are taking an ever-larger share of the domestic market.

The picture is reinforced by developments in the German automotive industry, which remains the largest robot customer but is in clear decline. The auto industry's share of German robot installations fell to 23 percent (5,785 units), from 40 percent in 2020. The IFR points to weaker-than-expected demand, especially for electric vehicles, as well as national and international political uncertainty, as reasons the industry has postponed investment projects and considered scaling back production.

China is building its own supply chain

Another central point in the report is that China's robot buildout increasingly relies on Chinese suppliers. Installations from domestic suppliers grew 15 percent in 2025, to 195,000 units – 55 percent of total installations, according to the IFR, as reported by Xinhua (https://english.news.cn/20260924/8f853d3faf53483e8eb593e165ce4365/c.html). Since 2024, Chinese brands have supplied more than half of all industrial robots installed in China.

The IFR's president, Jane Heffner, points out that this is no accident but the result of a deliberate state initiative. "China's success in modernizing its industrial system is based on its national robot strategy, which was started a decade ago," Heffner told Xinhua – reproduced here in English from the cited document. She further notes that the strategy is now being continued under the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), which, according to her, has a particular focus on directing AI research toward physical applications – that is, precisely robotics.

The US overtakes Japan – and the forecasts

It is not only Germany that is falling behind. The US passed Japan in 2025 to become the world's second-largest robot market after China, with nearly 38,500 installations, an increase of 12 percent, according to the IFR (https://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2026-09/69666765-international-federation-of-robotics-five-million-robots-now-operate-in-factories-globally-004.htm). Japan, long the quintessential robot nation, fell 19 percent, to 36,219 units.

The IFR further forecasts continued global growth: 655,000 installations in 2026 (up 9 percent) and 806,000 units in 2029.

The shift in the trade balance

The New York Times frames the technical figures within a broader economic and political perspective. The newspaper writes that a flood of cheap Chinese cars, chemicals and machinery has hollowed out European factories, contributing to the loss of around 14,000 industrial jobs per month in Germany – while the EU's trade deficit with China stands at roughly €1 billion (about 11.7 billion kroner) per day, the highest ever. These figures come from the newspaper itself, and we cannot verify them beyond the newspaper's sources, which are not fully available in the excerpt.

Rebecca Arcesati, at the German China institute MERICS (Mercator Institute for China Studies), points to exactly what the IFR report documents: that China's push into robotics and AI could further strengthen the country's industry and thus widen the trade imbalance between China and the EU, according to the Times.

What we don't know

One important caveat remains: all of the figures above come from the IFR's press releases and secondary reports, not from the World Robotics 2026 report itself, which has not been made available in full here. Press releases can omit methodological details, roundings and caveats that the full report would make visible.

In addition, two different units of measurement should be kept apart. The figure of 59 percent refers to China's share of annual installations in 2025. The New York Times additionally writes that "almost half" of the five million robots now working in factories worldwide are in China – that is, a share of the total stock. The two claims are compatible but not interchangeable: one figure speaks to this year's growth, the other to where the robot fleet actually is located.

It also remains to be seen whether the IFR's forecasts of 655,000 installations in 2026 and 806,000 in 2029 hold, and whether the German decline actually reverses – or whether the Kuka era will be seen as the moment Europe lost the initiative in factory automation.