China's Robot Installs Grew 20% While Japan's Fell 19%

The International Federation of Robotics said Sept. 24, 2026, that the operational stock of industrial robots working in the world's factories reached 5 million units in 2025, a 9 percent increase over 2024. That headline is the number that will travel. The number that matters is what sits underneath it: China's installations grew 20 percent to 354,000 units, while Japan's fell 19 percent to 36,219, South Korea's fell 1 percent to 30,000, and Germany's fell 8 percent to roughly 25,000, according to IFR's World Robotics 2026 report and The Robot Report's coverage of it. The countries that built the industrial robotics industry did not just lose share in 2025. Three of them shrank in absolute terms.

"Industrial automation is progressing at high speed," IFR President Jane Heffner said in the federation's press release. "The new mark of five million robots operational in factories worldwide is more than double the number seven years ago." Heffner's statement does not mention the divergence between China and the countries that used to define the industry; the report's own regional breakdown does the work her quote does not.

China installed 354,000 robots, 59% of the global total

China accounted for 59 percent of the more than 600,000 robots installed worldwide in 2025, and domestic Chinese manufacturers supplied 55 percent of the robots installed inside China itself, according to IFR's figures as reported by The Robot Report. That is a shift from a market that ran on imported robots from Japan, Germany and Switzerland for two decades toward one increasingly supplied from within its own borders. Epson's first cleanroom cobot, which shipped in September without a listed price, is one more Asian manufacturer's robot landing closer to where it is built, though IFR's own report does not break China's domestic-supplier share down by manufacturer.

The United States installed about 38,500 units in 2025, up 12 percent, enough to move past Japan into second place worldwide. Japan and South Korea did not just grow more slowly than the United States; they contracted. Japan's 36,219 installations were down 19 percent, dropping it to third place. South Korea's 30,000 installations were down 1 percent, holding fourth. Germany installed roughly 25,000 robots, down 8 percent, and still accounted for 41 percent of installations across the European Union even as its own total fell. Mexico's installations fell 7 percent to about 5,200 units, a third straight year of decline.

Not every market outside China contracted. India installed roughly 10,500 robots, up 15 percent, and has grown its installations by an average of 27 percent a year since 2020, according to IFR. Brazil installed about 4,300, up 38 percent, which The Robot Report tied to Chinese automakers building assembly capacity there; Canada's roughly 4,000 installations were up 5 percent.

IFR forecasts 655,000 installations in 2026, below 2025's growth rate

IFR forecasts 655,000 installations in 2026, a 9 percent increase, and 806,000 by 2029. Both of those growth rates are lower than the 11 percent jump in installations the industry delivered in 2025, which means the federation is betting 2025's record was closer to a peak than a new baseline. Nothing in IFR's release explains why it expects deceleration rather than a repeat of 2025's rate, and the coverage of the report does not break out how much of the 2026-2029 forecast assumes China keeps installing at 20 percent annual growth versus the rest of the world merely stabilizing at its current, shrunken level.

Jon Quick's 2 million jobs figure does not appear in IFR's own release

Jon Quick, chief executive of Launchpad Build AI, told The Robot Report that "it's a good time to be building robots" because "capabilities are increasing exponentially, while costs are coming down," and said the U.S. has "hundreds of thousands of open manufacturing and assembly jobs," a shortfall he said is "supposed to be 2 million by 2030." That figure describes open positions, not the effect installing 5 million robots worldwide has had on filling or eliminating them. Neither IFR's press release nor Quick's comment ties the robot count to a measured change in manufacturing headcount in any country. CNH's own margins fell 290 points while it waits on an autonomy fix of its own, which is a closer look at what automation is actually solving for than either the 5 million robot count or the 2 million job figure, but it is one company's numbers, not the industry's.

The report treats robot density and labor shortage as complementary facts. It does not show that one caused, or offset, the other. The variable that would change this read is China's installation growth holding at 20 percent through 2027 rather than reverting toward the global average IFR is forecasting; if it does, the number to watch in two years will not be a global total but the gap between China's installed base and everyone else's combined.

1. 2025 (actual)600K units
2. 2026 (forecast)655K units
3. 2029 (forecast)806K units

Source: International Federation of Robotics, World Robotics 2026, accessed 2026-09-27

Country	2025 installations	Change vs. 2024
China	354,000	+20%
United States	38,500	+12%
Japan	36,219	-19%
South Korea	30,000	-1%
Germany	~25,000	-8%
India	~10,500	+15%