The International Federation of Robotics released its World Robotics 2026 report on September 24, saying five million industrial robots were operating in factories at the end of 2025. IFR reports that the installed base increased 9% from a year earlier and that factories added 603,000 robots during 2025, an 11% annual rise.
Asia widened its lead
IFR says China installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, equal to 59% of global installations. It reports that the United States moved ahead of Japan to become the second-largest market, with almost 38,500 installations, while India installed nearly 10,500 units and ranked sixth.
The outlook is a forecast, not an observed result
The federation forecasts 655,000 installations in 2026 and 806,000 in 2029. It points to labor shortages, supply-chain changes and advances in AI, sensing and machine vision as potential drivers, but those demand estimates are projections rather than measured deployments.