In 2026, the industrial automation industry will usher in a long-lost upward cycle. Emerging industries such as AI, energy storage, and humanoid robots will experience explosive growth. Coupled with the intensive start-up of major national projects in the first year of the “15th Five-Year Plan” and the continued acceleration of the domestic substitution process, the recovery space of the entire industrial control market will be rapidly leveraged.
This round of industrial control recovery has three solid supports: First, driven by emerging industries, new tracks such as AI, energy storage, and humanoid robots have put forward new customized demands for industrial automation equipment, directly driving the revenue growth of the entire industry chain; secondly, driven by investment in major projects, water conservancy
National-level projects in the fields of transportation, energy and other fields have been intensively implemented during the year, releasing huge room for incremental procurement of industrial control equipment; thirdly, driven by independent controllable demand, the willingness to purchase domestic industrial control products in key industrial fields continues to rise, providing local industrial control companies with broad room for growth.
While the entire industry is improving, Inovance Technology, the domestic leader in industrial control, has encountered “happy troubles”: the volume of orders continues to rise but it cannot be delivered on time. The problem of the delivery rate in the first quarter not meeting expectations once attracted market attention.
Rising raw material prices and lengthened supply cycles of core components are common challenges faced by all companies in the current industrial control industry, and Inovance Technology is not immune.
In response to this predicament, the company quickly introduced two major response measures: first, to complete price adjustments for the entire range of products, reasonably transmit cost pressures to downstream, and ensure stable profit margins; second, to operate at full capacity across all production lines in the second quarter, and to make every effort to catch up with the delivery schedule and make up for the delivery gap in the first quarter.
This series of operations not only tests the company’s flexible supply chain management capabilities, but also places higher requirements on its customer maintenance capabilities.
While solving immediate delivery problems, Inovance Technology is also building a long-term moat through technological innovation, and continues to increase the research and development of precision components such as screw guides, pneumatic products, sensors, and high-performance motors to build a more complete product matrix.
Among them, the screw guide products have reached the industry-leading level in many subdivisions, and can be extended to the core components of humanoid robots, with huge future growth potential; the pneumatic products are currently in the market cultivation stage and will become a new performance supplement for the company in the future.
In addition, companies are actively integrating digital and intelligent technologies to create integrated solutions suitable for different scenarios and promote the application of AI technology in industrial scenarios.
Currently, Inovance Technology’s revenue basically comes from the domestic market, with overseas revenue accounting for less than 10%, and the pace of expansion is relatively slow.
There are two main reasons behind this: First, the global industrial control market has long been occupied by European, American and Japanese brands. Overseas customers have strong brand usage inertia, and it will take a long time to increase the awareness of domestic brands; second, domestic mature industrial control products need to be adapted and upgraded according to industry standards and user usage habits in different regions, and the market conversion cycle is long.
At present, enterprises adopt the “industry line overseas” model that combines brands and solutions. Although the short-term growth rate is not fast, it pays more attention to long-term sustainable market penetration and has stronger risk resistance.
In order to find the second growth curve to succeed the new energy vehicle business, Inovance Technology has locked in three core new tracks: The first is the intelligent robot track, relying on its technology accumulation in the field of core components and industrial scene resource advantages to promote the implementation of intelligent robots in more production positions. According to company estimates, traditional industrial robots can only cover less than 10% of industrial positions, and intelligent robots
In the future, the job coverage rate can reach 70% to 80%. This year, the company plans to take the lead in putting intelligent robots into commercial use in 2-3 mature industrial scenarios; the second is the digital energy track, closely following the dual carbon goals and the development trend of the computing power industry, and in-depth layout of new power system-related products; the third is the AI smart manufacturing track, promoting the deep integration of AI technology, automation technology and Chinese manufacturing, and exploring the incremental market in an all-round way.
In addition to the three core tracks, Inovance Technology has also launched the research and development of AI Data Center (AIDC) related products, predicting that AI data centers will develop in the direction of prefabrication, standardization, and modularization in the future. The company is not limited to the production of single hardware, but plans to create overall smart energy solutions to further improve its business layout.
The current delivery dilemma Inovance Technologies is encountering is essentially the “growing pains” of leading companies in the industry recovery cycle. It is also a typical epitome of China’s manufacturing transition from scale expansion to high-quality development.
In the face of short-term challenges, the company has demonstrated its strong operational resilience by channeling cost pressure through price adjustments and fully expanding production to catch up with delivery progress; its advance layout in the three cutting-edge tracks of intelligent robots, digital energy, and AI smart manufacturing also demonstrates the company’s long-term strategic vision.
Although the current pace of overseas expansion is slow, adhering to the long-term “industry line overseas” model may explore a more stable globalization path for Chinese manufacturing.
