Global spending on robotics, drones to hit $128.7bn in 2020

Worldwide spending on robotics systems and drones will increase by 17.1 per cent to reach $128.7bn in 2020, according to a new report by the International Data Corporation.

The IDC, in its ‘Worldwide Robotics and Drones Spending Guide,’ forecast that the spending would reach $241.4bn by 2023 with a compound annual growth rate of 19.8 per cent.

It said robotics systems would be the larger of the two categories throughout the five-year forecast period with worldwide robotics spending forecast to be $112.4bn in 2020.

The corporation said, “Spending on drones will total $16.3bn in 2020 but is forecast to grow at a faster rate (33.3 per cent CAGR) than robotics systems (17.8 per cent CAGR).

“Hardware purchases will dominate the robotics market with 60 per cent of all spending going toward robotic systems, after-market robotics hardware, and system hardware.”

It said purchases of industrial and service robots would total more than $30bn in 2020.

“Meanwhile, robotics-related software spending will mostly go toward purchases of command and control applications and specific applications,” the IDC said.

It said services spending would be spread across several segments, including systems integration, application management, and hardware deployment and support.

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According to the report, services’ spending is forecast to grow at a slightly faster rate (21.3 per cent CAGR) than software or hardware spending (21.2 per cent CAGR and 15.5 per cent CAGR, respectively).

The Research Director, Worldwide Robotics: Commercial Service Robots, Remy Glaisner, said, “Software developments are among the most important trends currently shaping the robotics industry. Solution providers are progressively integrating additional software-based, often cloud-based, functionalities into robotics systems.

“An operational-centric example is an asset management application to monitor the equipment performance in real-time. It aligns solutions with current expectations for modern operational technology at large and plays in facilitated adoption by operations leaders.”