Automotive, New Energy, Shipbuilding and Heavy Manufacturing Accelerate the Transition to Intelligent Welding

Executive Summary

During the first half of 2026, industrial welding robots continued to evolve from traditional “automation to replace manual labor” toward a new stage centered on artificial intelligence, machine vision, digital twins, intelligent welding processes, and flexible manufacturing.

According to publicly available data, China's industrial robot industry maintained strong growth in the first half of 2026. From January to June 2026, China's industrial robot production reached 537,689 units, representing a year-on-year increase of 28.0%. During the same period, the value added of the equipment manufacturing industry increased by 6.4%, while industrial robot and service robot production increased by 28.0% and 11.9%, respectively.

At the same time, welding robots continued to expand their applications in automotive manufacturing, construction machinery, steel structures, shipbuilding, offshore engineering, and new energy battery manufacturing. Some manufacturers have already begun integrating technologies such as 3D vision, AI-based path planning, intelligent seam detection, adaptive welding, and online quality inspection into robotic welding systems.

It is important to note that there is currently no single, comprehensive global database that provides actual global industrial welding robot installations for the first half of 2026. Therefore, this report does not treat market forecasts as actual sales figures. Instead, it combines official statistics, international robotics industry data, company disclosures, real-world application cases, and market forecasts to analyze the development of industrial welding robots in 2026.

Industrial welding robots are an important application segment of industrial robotics. Therefore, the overall development of the industrial robot market provides an important reference for understanding demand for welding robots.

According to data from China's National Bureau of Statistics:

Industrial robot production reached 537,689 units, an increase of 28.0% year on year. This indicates that demand for manufacturing automation equipment remained strong in China during the first half of 2026.

The National Bureau of Statistics also noted that emerging growth areas such as embodied intelligence and human-robot collaboration are driving demand for robot-related components and industrial robots.

This suggests that the growth of the industrial robot market in 2026 is not driven solely by traditional automotive manufacturing, but is increasingly expanding into a wider range of industries.

China continues to be the world's most important market for industrial robot applications.

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) World Robotics 2025 report, global industrial robot installations reached approximately 542,000 units in 2024, exceeding 500,000 units for the fourth consecutive year.

China accounted for approximately 295,000 installations, representing about 54% of global annual installations. This marked a 7% year-on-year increase and a new record for the Chinese market.

The automotive industry remained one of the major drivers of industrial robot adoption in China, accounting for approximately 45% of industrial robot installations in 2024.

This also explains why welding robots continue to have significant demand in automotive body manufacturing, chassis production, components, and new energy vehicle manufacturing.

Market forecasts indicate that China's welding robot industry is entering a new period of growth.

According to Frost & Sullivan industry data disclosed in relevant Hong Kong Stock Exchange filings, China's welding robot market is expected to grow from approximately RMB 9.4 billion in 2025 to RMB 10.6 billion in 2026, and is projected to reach approximately RMB 17.7 billion by 2030.

The expected compound annual growth rate from 2026 to 2030 is approximately 13.7%.

The estimated 2026 market size by welding robot category is:

One particularly important trend is the growth of laser welding robots.

The laser welding robot market is projected to grow from approximately RMB 600 million in 2026 to RMB 1.6 billion by 2030, representing an estimated CAGR of 26.6%, significantly higher than the overall welding robot market.

This indicates that:

Although laser welding robots currently represent a relatively small segment of the overall welding robot market, their growth rate is expected to significantly outperform traditional welding robot segments.

The above figures are market forecasts from Frost & Sullivan and were disclosed in relevant Hong Kong Stock Exchange materials. They should therefore be interpreted as market projections rather than actual first-half 2026 sales figures.

Automotive manufacturing has long been one of the most mature applications for industrial robots, while body-in-white welding is one of the most robot-intensive manufacturing processes.

A representative application case in the first half of 2026 was the Geely New Energy Vehicle Manufacturing Base in Yiwu, China.

According to Xinhua News Agency, Siasun Robot & Automation and Geely Automotive collaborated for nearly four years to deploy nearly 100 domestically produced heavy-duty industrial robots on major body-in-white production lines at Geely's Yiwu new energy vehicle factory.

These robots are primarily used for high-speed vehicle body welding.

The significance of this project goes beyond the deployment of nearly 100 robots. It demonstrates that domestically manufactured industrial robots are increasingly entering core automotive body welding applications that have traditionally been dominated by international robotics brands.

According to Xinhua, the project involved solving more than 1,000 technical challenges before receiving recognition from the vehicle manufacturer, providing a foundation for further expansion into other major automotive manufacturers.

Its SmartRobot intelligent manufacturing platform integrates:

3D Vision + AI Algorithms + Motion Control + Welding Process Knowledge

to create a more intelligent workflow covering workpiece recognition, path planning, and welding parameter matching.

Publicly disclosed product data indicates that its teach-free welding workstation can automatically generate welding trajectories for complex weld seams and combine them with an expert process database to determine suitable welding parameters.

The solution is designed for multi-variety, small-batch applications including steel structures, construction machinery, and shipbuilding.

Publicly disclosed performance data includes:

Changeover time: approximately 3 minutes

Welding efficiency improvement: more than 25%

First-pass yield: more than 98%

These figures represent specific product or application results disclosed by the company and should not be interpreted as industry-wide averages.

In 2026, however, 3D vision and AI-based path planning are changing this situation.

Public application cases show that intelligent steel structure welding workstations can use 3D vision to automatically identify workpiece geometry and generate welding paths based on the actual workpiece condition.

Some publicly disclosed application cases report welding efficiency improvements of more than 30% and first-pass qualification rates above 99%.

These figures come from specific enterprise application cases and do not represent average performance across the entire steel structure industry. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that:

3D vision + AI path planning is enabling robots to enter traditionally non-standard welding applications.