The economics of the global robotics sector has slowed in the past several years due to transnational upsets in the global financial community but the industry remains a substantial and growing enterprise.

1. Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets
Wellesley, Mass. – The economics of the global robotics sector has slowed in the past several
years due to transnational upsets in the global financial community but the industry remains a
substantial and growing enterprise. In the countries studied in Robotics: Technologies and
Global Markets (ENG001D), the market for whole robots, robot parts, robot software, and
related safety materials now approaches $22 billion. BCC Research forecasts it will rise at a five-
year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9% between 2013 and 2018, when it’s expected
to surpass $29 billion.
BCC anticipates that the bulk of the growth in the European Union will be concentrated in the
latter part of the forecast period, when robotic development initiatives now being undertaken on
an EU-wide basis will result in commercialized products. The distribution of growth among
different types of robots also reflects a profoundly different approach in the EU toward
encouraging the development of the industry than that in the North American market. The chief
difference is an EU-wide emphasis on creating a new class of robots that can safely work in near
proximity to humans and safely perform personal-care tasks that will be increasingly required as
the European population ages.
Regardless of the eventual level of development of medical robotics, the structural differences in
the way in which physicians, surgeons, hospitals, and other portions of the healthcare industry
are compensated for the services they provide will strongly favor development in the European
Union, where single-payer insurance programs predominate and the cost of malpractice
insurance is less burdensome than in the U.S., which constitutes the bulk of the North American
market. Suppliers of robots in North America have focused most of their efforts on developing
robots for military and security purposes, which command higher per-unit prices.
Robotics: Technologies and Global Markets (ENG001D) provides:
• Key developments in robotics that have occurred since BCC Research last examined this
rapidly changing market in the last quarter of 2010
• Forecasts of 2013-2018 product demand based on recent developments that alter the
industry’s technological and economic landscape in North America, Asia, Europe, and
developed nations in other regions
• A comprehensive regional set of tables that forecast current U.S.-dollar value demand for
four categories of robot products, six types of robots, 16 robot-using industries, and 26
end-user applications for robots

2. • An overview of key industry participants, and a patent analysis accompanied by a list of
patent numbers and titles of the more than 700 robot patents issued by the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.