Currently, my country’s industrial automation is ushering in an unprecedented period of policy dividends.
At the national level, the “Implementation Plan for Promoting Equipment Updating in the Industrial Sector” jointly issued by multiple departments clearly states that it is necessary to accelerate the green transformation and digital intelligent upgrading of production equipment, and to include digital and intelligent transformation into the scope of tax incentives.
Local governments also quickly followed up and significantly lowered the threshold for enterprises to update equipment through a combination of fiscal discounts, direct incentives and subsidies (such as incentives and subsidies based on 20% of the equipment investment).
Under the dual resonance of policies and the explosion of AI computing power, industrial automation equipment is making a comprehensive transition from traditional “stand-alone automation” to “flexibility, digitalization, and full-line integration.”
The logic of industry competition has shifted from simply “selling hardware” to “fighting for delivery, data, and depth of segmented tracks.”
Based on the current technical barriers, market scale and delivery capabilities, the domestic automation equipment industry is accelerating differentiation and forming three core competition echelons.
Core echelon sorting out: looking for “game-breakers” in the automation track
1. The first echelon: full-stack industrial control leaders and core components “hidden champions” (technological leadership and high barriers)
This echelon is the absolute main force in domestic substitution, has strong technical barriers and ecological construction capabilities, and leads the localization process of high-end manufacturing and core components.
Inovance Technology is the absolute leader in general-purpose servo and small PLC in China, and its full-stack industrial control platform has significant advantages.
The company is deeply connected with major OEM manufacturers such as new energy and 3C electronics, and has secured its position in the field of humanoid robot servo joints in advance. It is the well-deserved “bottom warehouse” core of the industrial control sector.
Eston ranks first in sales of domestic industrial robots and sets the benchmark for the entire industry chain layout (controller, servo system, body).
The company’s core components have a very high self-research rate, deep penetration in high-prosperity fields such as photovoltaic typesetting and lithium battery modules, and strong cyclical growth flexibility.
Green Harmonic is the absolute leader in domestic harmonic reducers and has successfully broken the overseas monopoly.
As the core supplier of robot “joints”, it is not only deeply integrated with mainstream industrial robot manufacturers, but also the core target of the humanoid robot industry chain, with extremely high growth flexibility.
2. The second echelon: leaders in segmented fields and high-growth newcomers (domestic replacement backbones and high flexibility)
Companies in this echelon have strong explosive power in specific segments or emerging tracks, and are the core beneficiaries of the production line transformation of small, medium and micro manufacturing companies and the rise of emerging industries.
Xinjie Electric is the domestic leader in small PLC. With its dense regional dealer network and cost-effective solutions, it has become the first choice for the automation transformation of scattered production lines for a large number of small, medium and micro manufacturing companies, with stable performance.
Hechuan Technology is a cutting-edge servo system company with a deep focus on booming downstream industries such as photovoltaics and lithium batteries.
The company relies on precise customized solutions to maintain extremely high revenue growth despite industry cycle fluctuations, and is a representative of domestic servo breakthroughs.
Opt is a full-stack leader in machine vision (light source/lens/vision software).
As the demand for 100% online inspection in unmanned factories explodes, vision has changed from “optional” to “standard”. The company has significantly reduced its dependence on foreign investment with its independent software ecosystem and ushered in a revaluation of value.
3. The third echelon: cost-effective integrators and cross-border ecological giants (agile customization and scenario implementation)
This echelon focuses on specific application scenarios or relies on a strong manufacturing ecology, focusing on high cost performance and rapid implementation, and is the “capillary” for the popularization of industrial automation.
Topstar focuses on providing “robot + automation” overall solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The company is deeply involved in subdivisions such as injection molding, and its business model is extremely cost-effective, benefiting from the continued release of automation transformation needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Newstar SCARA robot shipments lead the industry, and are deeply involved in the dual tracks of industrial automation and robotics.
Relying on the profound accumulation of elevator control technology, it has significant cost and channel advantages in motion control and body manufacturing.
Midea Group is a cross-border ecological giant, relying on the “KUKA + self-research” dual-line layout.
With its strong manufacturing heritage and global channels, it has accelerated the implementation of scenarios such as mobile robots and smart home appliance manufacturing, and promoted the in-depth integration of smart homes and industrial robots.
[Supplementary targets with high market attention]
In addition to the above three core echelons, the following companies also have extremely high financial attention and topicality in the secondary market:
Robots (Xinsong): Background of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, special robots (semiconductors, national defense) have significant advantages, and collaborative robots are making rapid progress.
Sanhua Intelligent Control: The core supplier of Tesla Optimus. The electromechanical thermal management technology extends to the robot joints, which is the core target of the embodied intelligence track.
Moons Electric: The world leader in stepper motors, its coreless motor technology is leading, and it is the core supplier of humanoid robot dexterous hands. It has a high proportion of overseas revenue and great flexibility.
Sector trend development: three core evolution directions
Looking to the future, the industrial automation equipment industry is continuing to iterate around the following three major trends:
1. Flexible production has become the absolute standard
As manufacturing orders show the characteristics of “multiple varieties, small batches, and rapid iterations”, the adaptability of fixed special equipment continues to decline.
Relying on flexible equipment with modular tooling and parameter quick switching systems, a single production line can be compatible with the production of dozens of products.
In the future, the market demand for stand-alone equipment without flexible adaptation capabilities will gradually shrink.
2. Digital data integration, equipment evolves into “intelligent agents”
Traditional equipment is only a production tool, while the new generation of smart equipment has fully turned into a “data carrier”.
By being equipped with data acquisition modules and AI large models, the equipment can not only achieve predictive maintenance and intelligent scheduling of faults, but also seamlessly connect with the factory MES system.
Equipment is evolving from passive execution to active decision-making “intelligent” form, laying the foundation for building a complete quality traceability system and smart factories.
3. The entire line integration solution replaces stand-alone machine procurement, and the service is full life cycle
The problems of scattered stand-alone purchases that result in equipment failure to link and high manual transfer costs are being completely abandoned.
Market demand has shifted towards integrated whole-line automation equipment, with manufacturers providing full-process services from solution design, production line construction to debugging training.
At the same time, the supporting service system continues to improve, and equipment manufacturers have effectively lowered the automation threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises by providing value-added services such as remote operation and maintenance and process optimization.
