MUNICH (DPA, CONVERSEER) – The German robotics and automation industry expects its turnover to slump by 10% to €14.5 billion (about $16.5 billion) in the current year.
“The growth outlook for all sub-sectors is currently gloomy until the end of the year,” said Dietmar Ley from Germany’s Robotics and Automation Association (VDMA) on Monday.
US tariffs are also contributing to the gloom, mainly because their ups and downs are unsettling customers, he said. In addition, the German sector’s competitiveness has deteriorated in some areas, especially in comparison with Asia.
If the level of tariffs were clear, customers could at least adjust to them, said Ley. He added that companies in the industry would generally have a good chance of passing on the additional costs to customers because there are relatively few domestic companies in these sectors in the US.
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The biggest problem area is currently the assembly systems segment, the largest of the industry’s three sub-sectors. Here, a decline of 15% to €7.7 billion euros is expected in the current year. Ley sees no signs of a quick recovery, with “no growth at all” for the coming year.
The outlook for image processing is much better. Here, the association expects stable sales of 3.1% in the current year, followed by an upward trend.
Robotics, the third sector, lies somewhere in between. The industry expects sales to decline by 5% to €3.7 billion in 2025. There is no forecast for the coming year.
The industry is hoping for some impetus from the Automatica trade fair in Munich in around three weeks’ time, which is expected to attract around 40,000 trade visitors and 780 exhibitors.