Spending on robotics and drones solutions will grow 22.1 percent to $103.1 billion in 2018, according to IDC.
The global spending on robotics and drones solutions will more than double to $218.4 billion by 2021 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.4 percent.
Robotics spending will reach $94 billion in 2018 and will account for more than 90 percent of all spending during the 2017-2021 forecast.
Industrial robotic solutions will account for more than 70 percent, followed by service robots and consumer robots.
Discrete and process manufacturing will be spending more than $60 billion on robotics in 2018.
The resource and healthcare industries will make significant investments in robotics solutions this year.
The retail and wholesale industries will see the fastest robotics spending growth over the forecast with CAGRs of 46.3 percent and 41.2 percent, respectively.
Jing Bing Zhang, research director, Robotics, IDC, said industrial robots are becoming more intelligent, human-friendly and easier to work with. This has accelerated their expansion in the manufacturing industry beyond automotive, especially in high-tech manufacturing.
“Growth in the service robotics market is being driven by a collision of robotic technology maturity, market readiness, and related technology maturity,” said John Santagate, research director, Service Robotics.
The IDC report said mechanics of robots are mature and the addition of artificial intelligence, advanced vision systems, cloud applications, Internet of Things, and continued mechanical innovation has enabled safe, collaborative robots that are working with people rather than replacing people.
Drone spending will be $9 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow at a faster rate than the overall market with a five-year CAGR of 29.8 percent.
Enterprise drone solutions will deliver more than half of all drone spending throughout the forecast period with the balance coming from consumer drone solutions.
Enterprise drones will increase its share of overall spending with a five-year CAGR of 36.6 percent.
The utilities and construction industries will see the largest drone spending in 2018 ($912 million and $824 million, respectively), followed by the process and discrete manufacturing industries.
The fastest growth in drone spending will come from the education (74.1 percent CAGR) and state/local government (70.5 percent CAGR) industries.
“While there is a growing number of consumer drone enthusiasts, we expect that drones will soon become part of the connected-home providing home security, monitoring children at play, or delivering groceries,” said William Stofega, program director, Mobile Device Technology and Trends at IDC.
China will be the largest geographic market for robotics, delivering more than 30 percent of all robotics spending throughout the forecast, followed by the rest of Asia/Pacific (excluding China and Japan), the United States, and Japan.
The United States will be the largest geographic market for drone spending at $4.3 billion in 2018, followed by Western Europe, China, and the rest of Asia Pacific (excluding China and Japan).
