Analysis of the unmanned forklift market and its development trends

As an intelligent industrial vehicle robot, the unmanned forklift integrates forklift technology and AGV technology to create a versatile solution for warehousing and logistics. Supported by the forces of traditional forklift manufacturers, traditional AGV manufacturers, logistics integrators, and warehouse robot enterprises, the unmanned forklift market is growing rapidly in the competition and is resulting in continual changes to unmanned forklift products and applications.

Due to the increasing prevalence of epidemics such as pandemics in 2020, many businesses are finding it difficult to resume production at their usual rates. This is prompting them to rapidly promote the pace of "machine for human" use which has shown a clear trend of continued expansion.

Concept of an unmanned forklift

An unmanned forklift, also called "unmanned forklift" or "forklift AGV", is a kind of intelligent industrial vehicle robot that integrates forklift technology and AGV technology. It's different from ordinary AGVs in that it can complete point-to-point material handling as well as realize the logistics transportation of multiple production links. This can solve the problems of high material flow and high labor intensity of manual handling in the process of industrial production and warehouse logistics operation.

The main focus of this topic is on products that handle pallets and access environments, which is a subdivision of the AGV industry. Characteristics of unmanned forklift include: loading various navigation technologies onto forklifts, building algorithms to map out areas, and adding safety features for obstacle avoidance.

As the main realization method of automated logistics, unmanned forklifts are widely stacker forkliftused in the fields of repetitive handling, intensive handling work, harsh working environment, and high environmental requirements. On the one hand, unmanned forklifts can ensure operation accuracy, efficiency and safety in scenarios such as repetitive handling, high-precision palletizing, and high access, and maintain stable operation 24 hours a day, replacing traditional forklift operations. On the other hand, based on the dispatching system, it can realize the docking with automatic equipment such as drums and shuttles, or multi-vehicle collaboration to realize the unmanned operation of the whole production process and improve the handling efficiency.

stacker forklift

Unmanned forklift market pattern

The use of unmanned forklift trucks in China dates back to around 2000, primarily in industries such as tobacco, the military, minting, and money printing. Investing in basic car bodies for automation modification is a relatively inexpensive method for integrators to use.

Starting from 2014, traditional forklift enterprises have laid out the forklift AGV market for transformation, represented by Linde, Hang Fork, HeLi, LiuGong and so on. Meanwhile, with the further emergence of the trend of material handling intelligence and automation, as well as the frequent forklift accidents, labor shortage and the growing trend of aging population, the requirement of enterprises to reduce cost and improve safety and efficiency is pushing to accelerate the replacement speed of automation solutions. The replacement of manual forklifts by unmanned forklifts is generally considered by the industry as an inevitable trend. In this context, from 2015 to 2019, the unmanned forklift business of professional AGV manufacturers has seen rapid development.

Furthermore, more and more mobile robot companies are entering the track of unmanned forklifts, including the leading industry and others, and their goal with the launch of forklift AGVs is to automate serialization of unmanned handling products and to cover more applications.

According to data from the China Mobile Robot Industry Alliance and statistics from the New Strategy Robotics Industry Institute, domestic forklift mobile robot manufacturers are currently divided into several categories, including traditional forklift manufacturers, traditional AGV manufacturers, logistics integrators and warehouse robot enterprises. Their market share shares are shown. Different enterprise attributes lead to different market considerations for each, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages in the competition.