World Robotics Report 2025

Most mobile robots for intralogistics come from the Asia-Pacific region with almost 84%, followed by Europe with 11% and North and South America with 5%. Direct sales remain the most important sales channel. "Robot-as-a-service" offerings are still in the minority, but increased by 42% in 2024 compared to the previous year. "We are seeing great demand for automation solutions with mobile robotics. At the same time, these projects often require considerable investment and capacity on the customer side. Simplifying the framework conditions for commissioning and use is and remains a key task for suppliers and customers. This is a dialog that the VDMA is supporting with numerous measures," says Sascha Schmel.

The market data in the World Robotics Report is sample data. The data is not extrapolated to the entire industry. All figures from the annual report World Robotics 2025 - Service Robots are based on a sample of 294 companies. The VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association, in cooperation with the IFR, provides information on market developments in the field of mobile robotics in intralogistics. The complete annual report "World Robotics 2025 - Service Robots" contains the data in cooperation with Fraunhofer IPA, a detailed analysis of service robotics in the respective application classes, a market assessment, expert interviews and a complete list of all service robot manufacturers known to the IFR. You can find out more about the structure and content of the report at https://ifr.org/wr-service-robots/ . The current annual report can be obtained directly from the IFR: https://ifr.org/worldrobotics .

The annual report "World Robotics - Service Robots" depends on active participation. Quantities are requested by application class on an annual basis. The effort for providers of mobile robotics is very manageable. In addition, those who register receive the statistics free of charge before publication. Interested providers can contact Anne Jurkat at aj@ifr.org or visit https://ifr.org/survey-participation for more information.

The VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association represents more than 250 German and European member companies from the fields of mobile robots, industrial trucks, cranes and hoists, warehouse technology and continuous conveyors. The Intralogistics-2X working group, which is part of the association, addresses both intralogistics providers and users in order to develop interface topics for intralogistics applications.

The VDMA represents 3600 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies. The industry stands for innovation, export orientation and SMEs. The companies employ around 3 million people in the EU-27, more than 1.2 million of them in Germany alone. This makes mechanical and plant engineering the largest employer among the capital goods industries, both in the EU-27 and in Germany. In the European Union, it represents a turnover volume of an estimated 870 billion euros. Around 80 percent of the machinery sold in the EU comes from a manufacturing plant in the domestic market.

Further information: https://vdma.eu/en/materials-handling-intralogistics

The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) is a professional non-profit organisation founded in 1987 to promote, strengthen and protect the robotics industry worldwide.

Further information: https://ifr.org/