Given the wave of digital transformation in manufacturing and the steadily increasing robot penetration rate, injection molding, as one of the most critical production processes in modern manufacturing, is becoming a typical application scenario for automation implementation.
As key execution equipment, robots in the injection molding industry can automatically perform operations such as part picking, sprue cutting, insert molding, and finished product palletizing during the injection molding process. They are widely used in fields such as automotive, home appliances, 3C electronics, medical devices, and daily consumer goods. Among them, Cartesian coordinate robots have long dominated the market due to their low cost and strong adaptability, with a market share exceeding 96% in 2025.
Relying on its full industry chain layout in core components, robot bodies, and system integration, the domestic brand Topstar topped the shipment volume in China's Cartesian coordinate robot market in 2025, with a market shipment share of over 10%.
01. Steady Expansion of the Robot Market in the Injection Molding Industry, with Cartesian Coordinate Robots Maintaining Dominance
As the world's largest injection molding machine market, China holds a pivotal position globally. According to statistics from the newly released "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry" by MIR, by 2025, the overall sales volume of injection molding machines in China exceeded 91,000 units, a year-on-year growth of over 7%. Given the boom in future tracks such as humanoid robots and the low-altitude economy, the injection molding machine market will usher in a new round of incremental space, and is expected to exceed 100,000 units by 2027.
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
The development trend of the robot market in the injection molding industry generally remains consistent with that of the injection molding machine market.
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
In 2025, the sales volume of robots in China's injection molding industry exceeded 99,000 units. Cartesian coordinate robots have long dominated the robot market in the injection molding industry due to their low cost and strong adaptability.
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
From 2021 to 2023, driven by the surge in demand for medical plastic products, the market scale of Cartesian coordinate robots once reached its peak, followed by a brief market decline in 2024. Subsequently, fueled by the continuous intensification of intelligent manufacturing policies and the increasing demand for precision injection molded parts in fields such as NEV (New Energy Vehicle), 3C electronics, and medical devices, the rapid growth in demand for high-end manipulators was further stimulated. Meanwhile, rising labor costs and the need for improved production efficiency have also accelerated the automation substitution process in injection molding enterprises. In 2025, the market scale of Cartesian coordinate robots in China exceeded 95,000 units, a year-on-year growth of 3.4%. It is expected that by 2030, the Cartesian coordinate robot market will maintain a steady growth trend.
02. Market Share Exceeds 10%, Topstar Remains Firmly the Top Domestic Brand
In 2025, the sales volume of domestic brands of Cartesian coordinate robots in China exceeded 91,000 units, accounting for over 96%, basically completing the domestic substitution in the low-to-mid-end market.
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
In recent years, market concentration in China's Cartesian coordinate robot market has further increased, and the competitive landscape of leading manufacturers has gradually become clear. From the perspective of manufacturer structure, the current market shows obvious echelon differentiation characteristics. Leading manufacturers mostly rely on injection molding industry chain resources to build competitive advantages in equipment collaboration, customer binding, and system integration capabilities. Among them, Topstar and Haitian are in the leading position in the industry with market shares of 10.1% and 8.8% respectively, ranking in the first echelon.
As a leading domestic enterprise, Topstar, relying on its full-chain capabilities in independent research and development of core components, robot body manufacturing, and system integration, continues to penetrate and break through into the high-end market, firmly ranking first among domestic brands with a market share of over 10%.
Haitian injection molding robots belong to the automation business segment under Ningbo Haitian Drive Technology Co., Ltd., covering R&D, production, and sales of robots. In industries with a high degree of standardization such as automotive and home appliances, Haitian possesses strong market competitiveness with its mature product system and customer base. In 2025, Haitian held a market share of approximately 8.8% in China's Cartesian coordinate robot market, and its overall performance showed a steady growth trend. In addition, represented by Borunte, the company has continuously adjusted its channel model in recent years, driving a phased recovery in shipment scale, but it still faces certain challenges in terms of pricing system and service capabilities, resulting in some fluctuations in market performance.
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
Facing the boom in the embodied intelligence industry, Topstar has also maintained clarity and pragmatism, proposing a two-path strategy: one path is based on traditional industrial robot workstations, integrating AI Agent capabilities to quickly solve the efficiency improvement problems in customers' existing scenarios; the other path is to use embodied intelligent robots such as wheeled, humanoid, and quadruped robots to conquer scenarios that traditional automation is difficult to cover, such as the pain point of "the last ten meters of material handling".
In 2025, Topstar globally released "Xiao Tuo", the country's first intelligent humanoid robot applied in injection molding scenarios, marking a key step in the application of humanoid robots in manufacturing scenarios.
Relying on the in-depth understanding and technical accumulation of 15,000 industrial customer scenarios, "Xiao Tuo" has completed multiple rounds of verification in injection molding workshops. Its core features of intelligence, modularity, and industrial grade have effectively solved the pain points of traditional solutions, such as reliance on skilled workers, complex debugging, and insufficient flexibility, achieving rapid production line changeovers and efficiency improvements.
The release of "Xiao Tuo" not only demonstrates the application potential of embodied intelligence in manufacturing scenarios but also fully reflects Topstar's steady construction of the business closed loop of "Scenario + Robot + Data + AI". Topstar is expected to follow the path of "empowering industrial scenarios first, and then commercial and home scenarios", gradually extending AI-empowered embodied intelligent products to broader fields, and truly realizing the mission of "making industrial manufacturing better".
03. Automotive, Home Appliances, and 3C Electronics: Three Major Fields Driving the Continuous Growth of Cartesian Coordinate Robots in China
From the perspective of downstream applications, in 2025, the applications of Cartesian coordinate robots in China are mainly concentrated in the three major fields of automotive, home appliances, and 3C electronics, accounting for a total of 66%, which is the core driving force for market growth.
Data Source: "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry"
04. Analysis of Future Development Trends of Robots in the Injection Molding Industry
The development trend of the robot market in the injection molding industry generally remains basically consistent with that of the injection molding machine market. As the injection molding machine industry gradually matures, the overall market scale of robots in the injection molding industry is expected to maintain steady growth.
From the performance of segmented models, given the declining costs of domestic SCARA and collaborative robots, as well as the increasing requirements of downstream customers for product precision and process complexity, some small and medium-sized enterprises may tend to choose more cost-effective SCARA or collaborative robots to replace Cartesian coordinate robots in the future. Nevertheless, relying on its advantages in cost, maintenance convenience, and standardized scenario adaptation, Cartesian coordinate robots will still maintain a high proportion in the low-to-mid-end injection molding automation market.
From a technical perspective, the future development trends of robot technology in the injection molding industry are mainly reflected in three aspects: integration of intelligence and AI, flexibility and customization, and high-speed, high-precision, and multi-functional integration.
In terms of intelligence, robots will accelerate their deep integration with AI technology. By combining AI vision technology, they can realize automatic detection, positioning, and classification of injection molded parts, accurately identify product defects and dimensional deviations, and reduce manual intervention. Meanwhile, through machine learning algorithms, robots can automatically adjust action paths and forces according to injection molding process parameters such as temperature, pressure, and speed, thereby adapting to changes in different materials and molds. Predictive maintenance functions are also becoming increasingly improved. By using sensor data and analysis models to identify potential failures of key components in advance, the risk of equipment downtime is reduced and overall reliability is improved.
In terms of flexibility and customization, modular design enables robots to quickly replace end effectors and fixtures according to different injection molding scenarios, flexibly coping with small-batch and multi-variety production needs. Rapid mold changing technology supports injection molding machines to quickly change molds, and robots can automatically adjust parameters and action paths, shortening production preparation time and improving equipment utilization rate.
In terms of high-speed, high-precision, and multi-functional integration, the repetitive positioning accuracy of robots may be further improved to ±0.01mm or even higher to meet the high-precision requirements of the high-end electronics and medical industries for injection molded parts. The development of multi-axis collaborative operations enables robots with five, six, or more degrees of freedom to efficiently complete the picking, assembly, and packaging of injection molded parts with complex shapes, realizing the integration of multi-process production. The deep integration of robots with injection molding machines, mold temperature control systems, and automated warehousing equipment will form a full-process automated production line, thereby improving overall production efficiency.
Conclusion
Given the huge market potential of the robot industry in the injection molding sector, MIR has specially compiled the "2025 In-Depth Insight Research Report on Robots in China's Injection Molding Industry". The report covers the overall market situation of China's injection molding machine industry and the robot industry in the injection molding sector in 2025, downstream industry performance, supplier market landscape, and technology development trends, providing decision-making and strategic references for enterprises. To obtain the report, you can contact us through the official account backend, or log in/register on the MIR DATABANK database on the PC side to get the report for free.
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