(Yicai) Oct. 12 -- Chinese manufacturers’ share of the domestic industrial robots market, the world's largest, reached a new high in the first half, after foreign rivals were stymied by the Covid-19 pandemic.

China’s industrial robot makers saw their share of the home market climb to 44 percent in the six months ended June 30, after pushing past 40 percent in the first quarter, according to market research institute MIR.

Though European makers ABB and Kuka and Japan’s Fanuc and Yaskawa Electric lead the global market, Chinese firms began to challenge the status quo as a window of opportunity opened up when the supply chains of foreign competitors became snarled.

Domestic robots did not run well in the past, so manufacturers were more willing to use imported ones, according to Duan Jingyi, chief executive of Tianji Intelligence Technology. But in recent years, the quality of domestic robots in handling, loading and unloading, regular assembly and even spraying scenarios has been good and gradually recognized by customers, he added.

The assembly of automobile and 3C (computer, communication, and consumer) electronic devices are the two main areas for industrial robot use. China’s imports of the products almost doubled to CNY9.2 billion (USD1.26 billion) last year from CNY5 billion in 2015, figures from the General Administration of Customs showed.

While China's leading robotics firms are bearing down on overseas peers in the fields of photovoltaics, lithium batteries, and auto parts, seizing market share and pushing into all corners of carmaking, foreign firms face a shrinking electronics industry and slowing demand in the fields of new energy vehicles and lithium batteries, forcing them to join the price war, the MRI noted.

In the first half of last year, MIR ranked China's industrial robot shippers and fund that 12 foreign brands were among the top 20. Estun Automation and Inovance Technology, ranking fifth and seventh, were the sole Chinese firms to make it into the top 10. But in the first half of this year, China's Efort Intelligent Equipment reached the top echelon, while Estun climbed to second spot.

Because the pandemic restricted imports, some industrial manufacturers switched to Chinese robots, leading to their higher acceptance, Duan pointed out. That is the backdrop for the decline in the market share of imported brands this year, he said.

As the supply of imported brands has been restored and many still have an inventory surplus, competition is heating up, Duan said, but noted that due to the pandemic, the window of opportunity is still open. Clients have seen the advantages of domestic machines and will continue to keep them in mind, he said.

In the first half of this year, Fanuc, Yaskawa, and ABB did well in China’s robotics market, but their global orders fell from a year earlier, data from GGII showed. International orders will likely fall further in the second half of this year.

Editor: Martin Kadiev