German robotics industry to grow 9% in 2023

German robotics and automation experts expect the industry’s gross revenue to grow by 9%, reaching 15.7 billion euros (over $17 billion) by the end of 2023, according to the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association. 

“Demand for robotics and automation remains high and the transformation of many customer industries requires innovative automation solutions. The easing in supply chain disruptions is now putting the industry in a position to successively work off the enormously high order backlog,” Frank Konrad, Chairman of the VDMA R+A Association and CEO of Hahn Automation GmbH in Rheinböllen, Germany, said. 

The VDMA R+A Association is a trade association that is made up of more than 370 member companies. These companies include suppliers of components and systems from the fields of robotics, integrated assembly systems and machine vision. 

Germany was the fourth most automated country worldwide in 2020 and 2021, with the country reaching 397 industrial robots for every 10,000 employees in 2021, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). 

Within the automotive industry, which has the largest number of robots working in factories around the world, Germany has 1,500 robots for every 10,000 employees, according to the IFR. This makes it the country with the second-highest robot density in the automotive industry, coming just below South Korea.