Germany remains by far the EU's largest market (41% of EU installations), followed by Italy (13%), with France and Spain tied at 7% each; across Germany, France and Italy, the automotive and metal industries remain the two dominant customer sectors for industrial robots. IFR President Jane Heffner linked slower European growth to a broader pattern of manufacturing relocation and reshoring toward high-wage economies facing labour shortages, alongside advances in AI, machine vision and sensing that are expanding which tasks robots can economically perform and easier programming that is lowering deployment costs for new adopters. Global installations are forecast to keep growing, reaching 655,000 units in 2026 and 806,000 by 2029, giving EU machinery and robotics companies a signal that global demand remains robust even if the EU's own domestic installation pace currently trails its main competitors.

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