The Competitive Landscape

A Dozen Markets Wearing One Label

“The robotics industry” is a useful phrase and a misleading one. It groups together companies that have almost nothing in common: a Japanese conglomerate selling $100,000 welding arms to Toyota, a San Francisco startup burning venture capital to build a humanoid that can fold laundry, a Danish manufacturer selling $50,000 cobots to small machine shops, and a Chinese firm selling $2,000 LIDAR units to delivery robot companies.

These companies do not compete with each other. They operate in different segments with different customers, different sales cycles, different margin structures, and different competitive dynamics. Understanding the robotics industry requires understanding which segment you are looking at, because the rules change dramatically from one to the next.