The Robotic Industries Association (RIA), part of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), today announced 2019 North American robot unit orders are up 1.6 percent compared to 2018 results, with 29,988 robotic units ordered. Order revenue for 2019 is down 1.3 percent, closing the year with $1.681 billion.
The largest driver of the growth was a 50.5 percent increase in orders from automotive OEMs and a 16.6 percent increase from the plastics and rubber industry. Orders to automotive component markets were down 6.6 percent, and all other non-automotive industries, including food & consumer goods, life sciences, metals, and semiconductor/electronics, contracted by single digits in comparison to last year.