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

Industrial robot use in general industry is catching up with the automotive sector. For example, robot sales in the rubber and plastics, metal and electrical and electronics industries 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. “Therefore, an accelerated and strong robot sales growth is expected between 2018 and 2021.”

Since 2009, the number of robot installations has been growing rapidly in India. In 2017, India ranked No. 14 regarding the global annual supply, following Thailand and Spain. Regarding the operational stock, India ranked thirteenth following Canada, Spain and Singapore.

In addition, India has a rather low industrial robot density figure of 85 per 10,000 employees in the automotive industry. This number is less than one-fourth of Indonesia´s density (378 units) and far away from China´s (505 units).