The rise of Chinese players in factory automation is increasingly underpinned by technology gains, according to Bernstein analysts, who argued in a note this week that narrowing gaps with global leaders is the biggest driver of market share growth.
“Chinese players’ market share gains are first and foremost driven by narrowing technology gaps, with notable inflections after 2020,” Bernstein wrote.
The analysts noted that across many factory automation (FA) segments, local companies’ market share closely tracks their technology levels relative to global competitors.
At one end of the spectrum,the firm said servo motion technology in China is now “indistinguishable from global peers in 90%+ of use cases,” leading to more than 50% local market share.
At the other end, advanced sensing and CNC machine tools still show “substantial gaps.”
Industrial robots are said to sit in the middle, with Bernstein highlighting “unstoppable share shift” as Chinese six-axis robot makers improved performance across specifications.
Bernstein identified three stages in the closing of industrial technology gaps: “specifications on paper,” such as positioning accuracy in CNC machining; “specifications in use,” including path accuracy in robots or surface roughness in machined parts; and “reliability,” which the analysts called “often the last pain point after all other gaps are closed.”
For industrial robots, reliability has been a turning point. Bernstein pointed out that “the meaningfully narrowed gap in Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) has helped Chinese six-axis robot makers further gain market share since 2022.”
But in CNC machine tools, significant gaps in MTBF and machining accuracy maintenance remain obstacles to import substitution at the high end.
Source :
https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/what-are-the-tech-drivers-behind-the-rise-of-chinese-factory-automation-4231956
