As the world's largest robots buyer, China is also beefing up efforts to boost and strengthen its own robot manufacturing industry under the guidance of the "Made in China 2025" strategy.
In April 2016, the Chinese authorities released the Robotics Industry Development Plan (2016-2020), pledging to forge an industry that can produce 100,000 Made-in-China industrial robots annually by 2020.
Analysts said that having the ability to make homegrown robots is significant for China, which is on course to automation.
"The over-reliance on foreign robot imports will lift up domestic manufacturing costs," Li Ting, director of the research center at the Chinese Institute of Electronics, told the Global Times Tuesday.
According to Li's estimates, imported robots are usually priced high, costing 80,000 yuan ($12,094) to 100,000 yuan more than domestic counterparts.
Chinese achievements
Although Chinese robot suppliers do not seize as many market shares as their foreign peers do, they are expanding aggressively.
The sales of Chinese robot makers in the nation's electrical and electronics industry, for instance, rose almost 120 percent last year year-on-year, much faster in comparison to the 59 percent growth rate posted by all international robot suppliers in the segment.
Overseas acquisitions and cooperation helped narrow the gap between domestic robot makers and their foreign peers, said analysts.
On October 9, Guangdong Tianji Robot Co, a joint venture between Shenzhen-based Everwein Precision and Japan's leading robot maker Yaskawa, unveiled the world's fastest industrial six-axis robot, dubbed as "TR8," according to a report by the China Securities Journal.
Everwein, which has a 65 percent controlling stake in Tianji, was quoted by the report as saying that it plans to produce 3,000 units of TR8s next year and 5,000 units in 2019.
Six-axis robots have greater flexibility than those with fewer axes and can perform complex tasks like welding, assembling and disassembling.
Another Chinese industrial robot maker Siasun Robot and Automation Co claimed in a post on its website in September that it is almost at the same level as foreign peers in terms of robot's controlling and precision abilities. And it took about nine years for it to achieve what foreigners achieved in 50 years.
Two-thirds of robots produced by Siasun have been adopted by foreign companies, according to a report published by Xinhua News Agency in April.
Chinese companies have successfully challenged foreign monopoly in producing controllers, decelerators and servo motors - the core components of industrial robots - and can now manufacture robots completely on their own, Li said.
"Made-in-China controllers and decelerators can now partially meet international standards, but are still not the world's first class yet," he noted. "And as a latecomer, China needs some time to test the stability and reliability of its homegrown robots."
Besides seeking assets and technologies abroad, Chinese robot makers should also work hard and pursue self-innovation, analysts suggest.
It might not be easy to acquire large-scale high-tech overseas assets in the robotics industry as they could be under strict scrutiny by foreign authorities, said Koo, citing Midea's takeover of Kuka.
"So far, most of the acquisitions in the robotics sector seem to be related to system integration, the downstream segment of the industry," she noted.
