KEY FINDINGS

Adoption of warehouse automation technologies is on the rise due to labor shortage, eCommerce penetration, and change in consumer behavior.

• US, Germany and China are the key market: United States, China and Germany are the largest markets with more than 50% share for Warehouse Automation both with regards to demand as well as the presence of OEMs and System Integrators. Europe is a big hub for OEMs, with strong presence in Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, and Spain. Western Europe is a big market accounting ~30% of the overall global market. Most of the fastest growing markets are concentrated in APAC, mainly in South Asia (India) and South-East Asia. Middle East is another exciting opportunity and is well suited in terms of geography with European players looking to expand their offerings in the region. Latin America is still under-penetrated with regards to automation; however, things are set to change and market is set to observe a high growth in Brazil and Mexico. Within Europe, Central and Eastern Europe is a fast-growing region, with Poland and Czech Republic emerging as logistics hub and showing good growth prospects.
• Online Grocery becoming the top attraction for warehouse automation: The Grocery industry is one of the most challenging and attractive industries from a logistics perspective.  Grocery distributors ship high cubic volumes of merchandise to retail stores with frequent deliveries to ensure product freshness.  Grocery distribution center operations are amongst the most labour intensive of any industry. Higher automation driven by online grocery, micro-fulfillment centers (MFC) and ultrafast deliveries is going to be biggest opportunity in next 5 years led by different type of solution providers as AutoStore, Ocado, Takeoff Technologies, Exotec, Fabric, Symbotic, Attabotics, OPEX, , Geek+, and Urbx Logistics. It will witness an opportunity of more than $7B by 2028 with 18% growth rate. We have already witnessed many partnerships in last 2-3 years such as Ocado and Kroger in USA, Takeoff Technologies and Majid Al Futtaim in Middle East, Walmart and Symbotic in USA, Ocado and Coles in Australia, and Freshippo (Alibaba Group) in China.
• AGV/AMR will remain the key technology to adopt: AGV and AMR market is expected to be biggest market in 2028 with a CAGR of ~30%. AMR (without any external support of optical tape, sensor or vision) is going to be main contributor in the warehouses due to high demand in e-commerce sector and its flexibility to deploy the robot without any major change in the existing warehouse infrastructure. However, it is a bit slow in terms of pick rate per hour as compared to ASRS but is preferred in small and medium warehouses due to lower cost and quick deployment. It is expected that AGVs/AMRs are going to have more than 20% market share by 2028 in this market led by players like Seegrid, Balyo, Hai Robotics, Geek+, GreyOrange, HikRobot, Quicktron, Locus Robotics, Fetch Robotics (Zebra), 6 River Systems (Ocado), Teradyne (MiR, AutoGuide Mobile Robots), Rocla, JBT, ek-robotics, Omron, Rockwell Automation (Clearpath Robotics, OTTO Motors) etc.
• Picking systems are still largely manual: The order picking process can be done manually or can be automated. Manual picking is preferred when there is a wide variety of SKUs (for example online grocery shopping) to pick from. The order picking is the most labour intense part of the warehouse/DC and ideal for automation, however automation becomes increasingly challenging as the number of SKUs goes up. Barcode scanning can minimize errors but RFID (radio frequency) is quicker and more accurate for product identification. Manual pickers can still be tasked with picking individual items; however, automated storage and retrieval systems can bring the goods to the picker, and order picking robots can improve this further, thereby cutting down on a lot of manual labour and costs. Technologies like pick-to-light or pick-to-voice can also increase the efficiency of the human worker even if the task is not truly automated. Apart this, piece picking robots are the latest pick by fulfillment center for ecommerce delivered by Righthand Robotics, Berkshire Grey, Osaro, Covariant, Kindred AI, Plus One Robotics, Fizyr, Dexterity, Pickr AI etc.

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Highlights of Warehouse Automation Market Report

• Warehouse Automation equipment suppliers and industry consultants expect broadly mid-teen% sales growth in long term driven by demographic changes, increased penetration in e-commerce and the advent of the Industrial IoT, that will drive demand for data analytics, 5G, digital services and automated operations in post-pandemic era.
• Competitive landscape – There are around 15 big players having annual revenue of more than $1B and 15-20 medium-size companies with revenue between $200M and $1B operating in the material handling equipment space capable of delivering comprehensive automated warehouse solutions. Top-10 large companies (including Dematic, Daifuku, SSI Schaefer, Honeywell Intelligrated, Knapp, Toyota Advance Logistics, Muratec, Beumer Group, Fortna, Witron) are capturing more than 50% of market share although lots of start-ups are emerging in new categories like AMRs, Cube based ASRS, Picking Robots, Micro-Fulfillment, Autonomy Service Providers etc. Symbotic has emerged as a new player in last couple of years to compete with stablished players in USA.
• Services, both MRO and Digital, importance is increasing – Over the time as the installed base of automated warehouse solutions grows, industry players expect an increase in revenues from services and maintenance, which would have a positive impact on profitability as the service business typically has 15-20% operating margins, versus 3-5% margins for new equipment. It is expected to be ~$11B opportunity by 2028 including digital services which is almost 25% of total market.
• Business models are also changing considering the real time pain points of end-users for high capex. Businesses are increasingly intrigued with RaaS (Robotics As a Service) because of its flexibility, scalability, and lower cost of entry than traditional robotics programs. The business model for pick-as-a-service is usually on a per-pick basis, ranging from 6 cents to 10 cents per pick, while AMR-as-a-service is usually leased on a monthly basis, from US$750 per robot per month to several thousands of dollars per month, depending on the commitment period.
• Industry Consolidation – The past 5 years have seen an increase in consolidation amongst material handling equipment providers as traditional players see acquisition of new technology leaders as an increasingly attractive way of positioning themselves in response to changing market trends. Acquisitions like Rockwell Automation (Clearpath Robotics, OTTO Motors), Jungheinrich (Magazino), SSI Schafer (DS Automotion), Zebra (Fetch Robotics, Matrox), ABB (ASTI), Toyota (Vanderlande, Bastian Solutions, ViaStore), Murata Machinery (Cimcorp), Locus Robotics (Waypoint), Hitachi (JR Automation), KPI Solutions (Kuecker Logistics Group, Pulse Integration, QC Software), Ocado (6 River Systems, Kindred, Haddington Dynamics), Element Logic (SDI), Honeywell (Intelligrated, Transnorm), Körber (Cohesio Group, Siemens Logistics, HighJump), Teradyne (MiR, Energid, AutoGuide Mobile Robots), Jungheinrich (Arculus), KION (Dematic), KUKA (Swisslog) are just some of the examples of this consolidation.

Facts to Know

• Global e-Commerce sales have grown at a CAGR of 20% over the last decade, reaching almost $5 trillion worldwide in 2021, and expected to grow to more than $8 trillion by 2027. The share of online retail sales has gone from 2% of total to 19%, and is further expected to reach >25% by 2030.
• Amazon Robotics automates the company’s fulfillment centers using more than 750,000 autonomous mobile robots, 25x growth from 30,000 at the end of 2015. Amazon had been playing catchup to match supply with demand – fulfillment costs as a percentage of net sales climbed from ~15% in 2020 to 16-17% in 2022. Company has  created a $1 billion venture investment program called the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund (AIIF) to spur and support innovation in customer fulfillment, logistics, and the supply chain.
• Walmart announced has partnered with Symbotic to reimagine the retailer’s regional distribution network. Symbotic first implemented its system in Walmart’s Brooksville, Florida distribution center in 2017. Since that time, the companies have worked together to optimize the system. In July 2021, Walmart announced its partnership with Symbotic to implement their high-tech automation system in the regional network and planned to implement this technology in 25 of their 42 RDCs. In May 2022, both expanded
  commercial agreements to implement Symbotic’s robotics and software automation platform in all 42 of Walmart’s regional distribution centers over the coming years.
• Zalando, Europe’s leading online platform for fashion and lifestyle, has opened its third fulfillment center in Poland. The ramp up marks an important milestone in Zalando’s logistics network expansion with two Polish fulfillment centers serving Zalando’s growing customer base and one logistics site taking care of Zalando Lounge deliveries.
• Warehouse labour shortages are also an issue with peak labour demands occurring around major shopping holidays viz. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Amazon Prime day, Thanksgiving Day and Singles Day. Warehouses have to hire temporary labour around these peak times to meet the customer delivery schedules. Supply chain robotics company Cainiao had installed 700+ robots at China’s largest robot-run warehouse to process orders on Singles Day.
•  2022 was the first year in Singles’ Day history Alibaba declined to release its sales data, with the company simply stating sales were “in line” with those of 2021. Alibaba rival JD.com (China’s second-largest retailer) also declined to release sales numbers for the first time—although they called their sales “record-setting”. Singles’ Day 2022 sales volume across all platforms was between $130 and $150 billion, an increase of between 3% and 13% from 2021. Analysts are expecting low-single-digit% growth for 2023 Singles’ Day.

Amazon kicked off the arm race to automate warehouses & supply chains 

Robotics & automation is rapidly becoming a key success factor in eCommerce and is about to make a very large impact on the world of logistics. From autonomous mobile robots and automatic storage systems to track & trace technologies and advanced supply chain software, it is a game changer enabling increasingly speedy, safe and error-free distribution, shorter time to market and ultimately lower costs to businesses and consumers.

Amazon was a major driving force behind the birth of the warehouse automation industry. In 2005, Amazon introduced Prime, its express shipping membership program for about a million products. Today Amazon has more than a 100 million Prime members using its fast, free, unlimited shipping on more than 30 million items, free same-day delivery on more than a million items, and even one-and-two-hour delivery on tens of thousands of items in certain cities. Prime has eventually proved sustainable with scale and automation, and has enabled Amazon to grab more than 35% share of the US eCommerce market. It is now the de facto benchmark in the online retail industry, setting consumers’ expectations in terms of shipping performance at a very high level.

A massive advantage of online operations for retailers is that a very large stock file can be held in one location and distributed globally. This allows retailers to stock many more products (SKUs) than are available in each individual store without the same associated inventory risk. The success of aggregation websites shows clearly that a larger choice of products drives sales growth over time.  Automation of warehouses allows retailer to handle ever larger volumes and ranges of stock, which in turn drives growth.

Amazon Prime would not be viable without leveraging cutting-edge advances in Robotics & Automation technology, which the company has turned into a source of sustainable competitive advantage. In 2012, Amazon acquired Kiva Systems in a $775m deal. Kiva Systems, now known as Amazon Robotics, pioneered the use of autonomous mobile robots for warehouse automation, introducing a revolutionary approach to order fulfilment. Kiva robots navigate autonomously around the warehouse, moving dynamically-stored shelves of ordered items to packers to fulfil orders, controlled by cutting edge control software. Today Amazon Robotics automates the company’s fulfilment centers using more than 750,000 autonomous mobile robots, up more than 25x from 30,000 at the end of 2015.

With Kiva technology confined to Amazon warehouses since 2015, many companies have scrambled to fill the void and we are now seeing a proliferation of mobile robotic systems with various degrees of autonomy. The industry is still in its infancy, with competitors ranging from established players such as Swisslog, a subsidiary of KUKA recently acquired by Chinese electrical appliance giant Midea, and Adept, also acquired by Omron of Japan, to a multitude of startups such as Fetch Robotics in the US, Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) in Denmark, which was started by a co-founder of Universal Robotics, Singapore based GreyOrange with customers in India, as well as Hikrobot Technologies, a subsidiary of Hikvision in China.

Amazon acquired Whole Foods Markets in a $14bn deal with wide ranging implications for the e-commerce and logistics industries and a sign that online grocery shopping may be ready for prime time. We think the deal marked a seminal moment in the US online grocery market, which remains in its infancy, at only 2% of the $675bn US grocery market and around 6% in the more developed UK market. The merger between Kroger and Albertsons could be another game changer in retail automation. In recent years, a number of online-only grocery services such as Ocado have tested and proven the business model, with very high automation intensity but relatively limited scale. Meanwhile, traditional grocery retailers have struggled with the last-mile logistics nightmare. Given the additional logistical challenges presented by grocery picking and shipping such as cold chain.

Order Picking remains a Robotic Challenge

Order picking in warehouses still remains a largely manual process, with Amazon commenting that commercially viable automated picking remains a “difficult challenge”.

There have been launches of robots that enable automated order picking. Most of the robot vendors, as well as some of the warehouse automation players themselves, produce some variety of order picking robots. These order picker robots ‘pick’ the parcels off the pallet and place them into cartons or boxes, which go onto the conveyor system for further delivery.

Initially picking robots were being produced that are capable of picking objects off the shelf (which is a more subtle process), such as IAM Robotics which uses an autonomous mobile picking robot called Swift which has a Fanuc arm. These robots are often classified as collaborative robots (cobots), and the shelf-picking function often comes on top of being an automated guided vehicle, which transports objects from the shelf to the packaging and shipping corner of the warehouse. In 2020, Ocado agreed to buy San Francisco-headquartered robotics firm Kindred Systems for $262 million and Las Vegas firm Haddington Dynamics for $25 million to enhance its picking and packing capabilities. Apart this, Ocado Group acquired 6 River Robotics, a collaborative AMR fulfillment solutions provider to the logistics and non-grocery retail sectors, from Shopify in 2023.

Warehouse robots are typically used for:

1. De-palletizing/palletizing: De-palletizing robots strip a pallet of products coming into a warehouse. In the simplest cases this can be all the same product (say from a single manufacturer), but may also contain mixed products. De-palletizing robots are typically standard industrial robots with a dedicated tool mounted, often using a vacuum enabled grip to remove packages from the pallet. Palletizing robots re-pack the pallet for onward shipment.
2. Order picking: A picking arm can be mounted to a standard industrial robot/cobot. As highlighted by DHL, a standard industrial robot from the major supplier has none of the five senses when it comes out the box, meaning the sensing/machine vision, software and dexterous tool are crucial add-ons.
3. Goods-to-person movement through AGVs: Autonomous Guided Vehicles are typically used for goods-to-person movement.

eCommerce to be the biggest segment in the Warehouse Automation Market by 2028, followed by Grocery

eCommerce and Grocery will have the largest demand for warehouse automation equipment, growing in high-teen% through 2028. The growth of eCommerce is also driving the demand for automation solutions from geographies such as India, Indonesia, Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe, where historically there is a very low penetration of such solutions. In emerging economies, there is a high demand for modern warehouse space.

APAC will be the largest market for warehouse automation, with India demonstrating highest growth globally, in the backdrop of its huge potential in eCommerce. Regional upstarts such as GreyOrange and Addverb Technologies in India, point towards more localized solutions gaining traction with eCommerce players as well.

United States is currently the largest market for warehouse automation and is expected to maintain its leadership given the fact that fully automated warehouses account for less than 5% of the total warehouse area in US. We expect this to change substantially during our forecast period, as faster fulfillment, and shortage of labour, as well as high wages for warehouse staff), drive more adoption of automation technologies. China will play a close second to US, driven by the tremendous growth in eCommerce and the large amount SKUs being handled and shipped by players such as JD.com.

Top-6 players account for >50% of the market share currently, market to witness more M&As in the future

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Key Players Analyzed

• Material Handling Equipment: Dematic, Daifuku, SSI Schafer, Honeywell Intelligrated, Murata Machinery, FIVES, Körber, Savoye, Witron, Beumer Group, Swisslog, TGW, Interlake Mecalux, Knapp, OPEX Corporation, Westfalia, Vanderlande, MHS Global, Bastian Solutions, SIASUN, KPI Solutions, Lodige, Kardex, Jungheinrich, Dambach, PSB Intralogistics, Gudel, Symbotic
• AGV/AMR: Geek+, Quicktron (Flashhold), Amazon Robotics (Kiva System), Grey Orange, HikRobots, MiR, inVia Robotics, Guidance Automation, IAM Robotics, EiraTech Robotics, Aethon, 6 River Systems (Shopify), Caja System, Cobalt , Sherpa (Norcan), Syrius Robotics, Locus Robotics, Matthews Automation Solutions, Waypoint Robotics, iFuture Robotics , SMP Robotics, Milvus Robotics, ALOG Tech, Vecna Robotics, Fetch Robotics, Tompkins Robotics, Scallog, MegVII, Malu Innovation, EuroTec (Lowpad), Cohesio Group (Korber), OTTO Motors (Clearpath Robotics), BLEUM, Ubiquity Robotics, Neobotix, IQ Robotics, Next Shift Robotics, KnightScope, Magazino, Intelligent Robots, Yandex, Savioke, Gideon Brothers, The Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz Ltd., ForwardX , Omron Adept, Milrem Robotics, Cainiao, Cohesio, DS Automation, Ro-ber, Rocla AGV, Active Space Automation, AgiLox, John Bean Technologies Corporation (JBT), AGVE Group, EK Automation, Transbotics (SCOTT), ESTI Mobile Robotics, America in Motion (AIM), Kivnon, Oceaneering AGV, Casun, Savant Automation, AGV International, Creform, PAL Robotics, Pulse Integration
• Warehouse Management System (WMS): AFS Technologies, Aptean, Consafe Logistics, DataByte, Davanti, Deposco, DSI, Ehrhardt + Partner Group, EVS, Generix Group, HAL, Hardis Group, HighJump, inconso, Infor, Iptor, Blue Yonder, Made4net, Manhattan Associates, Mantis, Mecalux Software, Microlistics, Oracle, Reply, SAP, Softeon, SSI SCHÄFER IT, Synergy Logistics, Tecsys, Tradelink, TTX, Vinculum, vTradEx, Savant Software, envista, Fishbowl
• Micro-Fulfillment: Takeoff Technologies, Fabric, Dematic, Knapp, Murata Machinery, Alert Innovation, Opex Corporation, Attabotics, Autostore, Exotec, Swisslog, Clevron, i-collector, Storojet, Konecranes, Ocado Technology, Pulse Integration, Geek+, Hai Robotics, Urbx Logistics, Nano Fulfillment
• Piece Picking Robots: Righthand Robotics, Kindred AI, Knapp, Universal Robotics, Berkshire Grey, Plus One Robotics, XYZ Robotics, Swisslog, Grey Orange, OSARO, Dematic, Nimble, Fizyr
• Last Mile Delivery: Myrmex Robotics, Cleveron, Starship Robots, Nuro, Refraction AI, LogiNext, PostMates, Bringg, Matternet, what3words, Deliv, Roadie, Routific, Gatik AI, iMile, Robby Technologies, Marble.io, BoxBot
• Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC): Zebra Technologies, Datalogic, Cognex, SATO, Honeywell AIDC, SICK, BLUEBIRD, DENSO, Panasonic, Toshiba TEC, TSC, CASIO, SNBC, AVERY DENNISON, NCR, Scan Source, Newland America, CAB, EPSON, Unitech, M3 Mobile
• Autonomy Service Providers (ASP): Covariant AI, Brain Corp, Balyo, Mov AI, Amazon Canvas, WIBOTIC, Realtime Robotics, Seegrid, Kollmorgen, Oceaneering, MEGVII, MOVEL AI, PerceptIn, RoboCV, Robominds, SlamTec, Freedom Robotics, Humatics, Clearpath Robotics, Bluebotics, ASI, Exyn Technologies, BITO Robotics, Vecna Robotics, Robust AI, Stanley Innovation, Southie Autonomy
• Warehouse Drones: PINC Solutions, Drone Delivery Canada, Dronescan, Eyesee Drone, Infinium Robotics, Matternet, Workhorse Group, Skycart, Skysense, Zipline, Flirtey, Flytrex, Altitude Angel, Airmap, H3 Dynamics, Edronic, Cheetah Logistics Technology, Multirotor, Skyward.io, Unify, Sensefly, Volocopter GmbH, Ehang, Uber

What will you get in this report?

• LogisticsIQ™ Exclusive Market Map (650+ Players across 15+ categories)
• 500+ Pages and 290+ Exhibits Market Report for 7 major Industry Verticals and 10 Technologies
• A bottom-up analysis of Warehouse Automation market for 20+ countries and regions
• In-depth analysis of 700 companies in the ecosystem with more than 140 company profiles
• Focus Group Discussion with 100+ key industry stakeholders across the value chain to collect the first-hand information to validate our analysis
• Excel file with a pivot modelling and 350+ market tables including forecast till 2028
• 2 Analyst Sessions to brainstorm further
• Investment details with 150+ M&A and 750+ funding deals