Top 10 countries globally for industrial robots: who's growing, who's falling behind
China > USA > Japan > Korea > Germany > India
China installed 354,000 industrial robots last year. The next four countries combined installed about 130,000.
That's the real story inside the International Federation of Robotics' World Robotics 2026 report, released September 24 in Frankfurt. The headline is a milestone: 5 million industrial robots now operating in factories worldwide, more than double the count of seven years ago. Factories installed 603,000 new robots in 2025, up 11%, and the IFR forecasts 655,000 this year and 806,000 in 2029.
But where those robots are going tells you who is building the next generation of manufacturing capacity. And right now, it's mostly one country.
Country rankings: industrial robots
Here are the countries ranked by total number of industrial robot installations:
- China: 354,000
- United States: 38,400
- Japan: 36,200
- South Korea: 30,000
- Germany: 24,842
- India: ~10,500
- Italy: ~7,800
- Mexico: ~5,200
- France: ~4,500
- Spain: ~4,300
- Brazil: ~4,300
- Canada: ~4,000
And here is the growth rate in new installations, year over year:
- Brazil: +38%
- China: +20%
- India: +15%
- United States: +12%
- Canada: +5%
- South Korea: −1%
- Mexico: −7%
- Germany: −8%
- France: −8%
- Italy: −11%
- Spain: −15%
- Japan: −19%
China is leading, and it's not even close
China's installations grew 20% in 2025 to 354,000 units, a new record and 59% of every industrial robot installed on the planet. China's year-over-year increase alone, almost 60,000 robots, was bigger than the entire US market.
None of this is accidental.
"China's success in modernising its industrial system is based on its national robotics strategy, which was initiated ten years ago," IFR President Jane Heffner said in a statement. "The recent update, launched as part of China's 15th Five-Year Plan 2026–2030, aims to focus its AI research on physical applications, with robots being the main drivers of economic growth."
The money is landing everywhere in Chinese industry.
Electronics makers installed 96,400 robots, up 16%. Automakers installed a record 78,900, up 38%. Metal and machinery jumped 44% to 78,700. Not every bet pays off: robot installs in China's food and beverage sector fell 37% after an 86% surge the year before, and textiles collapsed 92%. But the overall direction is clear, and the IFR expects 5% to 10% annual growth in China through 2029, driven by a shrinking workforce and a national push for what the plan calls technological self-reliance.
China is also building its own robots, not just buying them. Chinese brands accounted for 195,000 installations at home, up 15%, for a 55% domestic share. That's actually down slightly from 57% in 2024, because foreign suppliers grew even faster, up 27%. So Japanese and European robot makers are still selling plenty into China. They're just selling into a market that's increasingly building for itself.
Growth in the United States
The United States had a good year. It passed Japan to become the world's second-largest robot market, with 38,400 installations, up 12%. Heffner called it the third-strongest year on record, behind 2018 and 2022, with growth coming from food, warehousing, logistics and medical, while automotive held steady as the biggest buyer at 13,500 units.
Second place, though, is a long way from first.
China installed more than 9X as many robots as the US did.
And there's a supply chain problem hiding in the American numbers. The IFR says the US has plenty of domestic system integrators and a few newer American robot manufacturers, but most robots in the US are still imported from Japan and Europe.
China is increasingly building its own automation. The US is mostly buying someone else's.
The IFR's outlook for the US is positive, with reshoring and labor shortages expected to drive demand, though it warns that trade tensions and uncertainty will weigh on the market in the short term.
Japan and Europe: falling behind?
Japan is the big loser this year.
Installations dropped 19% to 36,200, knocking it from second to third globally, and the IFR doesn't see a major recovery coming in the short to medium term. That's a striking slide for the country that supplies a huge share of the world's industrial robots. Korea was essentially flat at 30,000, as it has been since 2019, though new auto industry investments could lift it in 2027.
Europe is falling behind.
Germany is still the continent's anchor and fifth in the world, but its installs fell 8% to fewer than 25,000, with average annual growth of just 2% from 2020 to 2025. Italy dropped 11% to about 7,800. France fell 8% to almost 4,500. Spain dropped 15% to about 4,300. Germany's auto industry, the biggest buyer of robots there, is shrinking as a share of the market.
Heffner's diplomatic summary: the strongest growth is in Asia, then the Americas, while "Europe is moving ahead more slowly."
Then there are the risers. India installed almost 10,500 robots, up 15%, good for sixth place globally. That's small, but India's installs have grown 27% a year on average since 2020, the fastest trajectory of any major market. Canada grew 5% to almost 4,000. Brazil jumped 38% to almost 4,300, thanks largely to a 212% surge in its auto industry. The IFR says Chinese carmakers investing in Brazil were most likely responsible.
Think about that for a second. Chinese industrial strategy is now driving robot demand on other continents.
Mexico, meanwhile, fell 7% to fewer than 5,200 units, its third straight year of decline.
The IFR expects relocation of manufacturing to keep reshuffling where robots get installed, as countries chase supply chain resilience and build factories in high-wage, labor-short economies. That should help the US, and maybe India. Whether it helps Europe is an open question.
For now, the scoreboard isn't close. One country is automating at a scale the rest of the world can't match ... and it has a 10-year plan that says it intends to keep going.
Sources
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I tell stories with data and build startups. I've raised angel and VC funds, led software companies and startups, and chronicled the rise of the mobile economy. Currently I write for Forbes, host several podcasts, and am starting up HumanoidMegaHub. I was TUNE's mobile economist and Singular's VP of Insights, built the research team at VentureBeat, and managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney. In past lives I built websites, e-learning platforms, and mobile apps, and, a long time ago, was named to Folio's top 100 of the media industry's "most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers.”