Robotics

Conventional industrial robots already have an established market. IFR’s September 2025 report counted 542,000 installations worldwide in 2024, including 85,000 in Europe. This measures machines installed in one year, rather than sales revenue or the whole operating fleet, and gives a sense of how widely factories already use dedicated robots.

General-purpose robots, including humanoids, are at a much earlier stage. The chart uses McKinsey’s May 2026 outlook for this separate segment, with a much larger market projected by 2040. That possibility depends on robots becoming useful and affordable beyond today’s trials, so it remains a forecast rather than an established market.

Factory trials are beginning to show what that work can look like. In February 2026, BMW reported that Figure 02 had handled sheet-metal parts during a ten-month pilot supporting production of over 30,000 X3 cars. The robot moved parts within the production process; it did not assemble those cars itself.

BMW’s June 2026 update described a Figure 03 project for more complex logistics sequencing, putting parts in the order needed for production. It takes the same idea into a different task: using a robot to help organise physical work in a factory. These are still projects under development, but they make the possible uses easier to picture.