Manipulators and robots production value Japan 2013-2022

In 2022, the value of manipulators and robots produced in Japan amounted to approximately 1.02 trillion Japanese yen, increasing by around 8.7 percent year on year. Their production volume added up to roughly 280.5 thousand units.

Industrial robots: indispensable for Japanese manufacturers

As computing power has reached new heights, the possible applications of robots have substantially increased. Therefore, the automation of industries keeps progressing to help with tedious, difficult, and dangerous tasks in manufacturing and, increasingly, services (e.g., logistics). In Japan, especially manufacturers of the automotive industry and the electrical machinery industry need robots to produce high-tech products like semiconductors that can compete globally with high quality at a low price. Accordingly, companies of these industries (Toyota, Honda, Tokyo Electron, etc.) are among the largest robotics patent owners in the world.

Next steps of automation: Moving towards the Internet of Things (IoT)

The growing integration of information technology in industrial environments transforms robots and other machines from simple helping hands to ‘smart’, communicating production assets. They integrate with sensors and alike into the central business infrastructure, where big data is processed in the Internet of Things using artificial intelligence. Industrial IoT may significantly increase quality but reduce costs, risks, and time by predicting maintenance, monitoring assets, managing remotely, improving logistics, or employing digital twins to simulate production. Automation is far from decelerating: Between 2021 and 2027, the domestic robot market is expected to more than double.