Full Year Forecast 2025: The German Robotics and Automation Industry Continues To Falter

A 10 percent REVENUE DECLINE is expected for the full year 2025, according to an updated forecast from the heavy industry association VDMA Robotics + Automation. There is no doubt that times are tough for the European manufacturing industry in general. Not least, the figures for the German robotics and automation industry reflect the challenging situation. Today, the industry association, the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association (VDMA R+A), with more than 420 member companies - and which is also part of the larger VDMA, which represents 3,600 German and European companies in mechanical and plant engineering - notes in a press release that German industrial companies in the field are expected to reduce their sales by 10 percent compared to last year. In total, sales are expected to fall to 14.5 billion euros in 2025, according to an updated forecast.
"The revenue weakness announced at the beginning of the year has been confirmed in our current forecast for 2025," says Dr. Dietmar Ley, Chairman of the Board of Directors of VDMA Robotics + Automation. "The growth outlook is currently cloudy in all sub-sectors until the end of the year."
The sharpest decline is expected in Automated Solutions, with a forecast revenue decline of 15 percent to 7.7 billion euros. The figures for robotics also continue to point downwards and have deteriorated slightly in the new forecast from minus 3 percent to minus 5 percent, with expected revenues of 3.7 billion euros for 2025. This is while the subsector Machine Vision is stagnating with zero growth and is expected to generate industrial revenues of 3.1 billion euros.
As important reasons for the economic weakness in Europe and Germany, the German industry association points to, among other things, postponed investment plans due to current geopolitical tensions and increasing competitive pressure from Asian rivals. Effects that are of course also linked to the US Trump administration's tariff war, although this is not explicitly pointed out in the press material.
"Robotics and automation are key technologies without which industrial production in a high-wage country like Germany will no longer be conceivable in the future," says Dr. Ley and adds: "Politics and business must now take joint measures to reduce location-based disadvantages in international competition and set the course for renewed growth." To this end, the previously published "VDMA Robotics Action Plan for Europe" sets out three core requirements - what are they? Click on the main heading to read more on PLM&ERP News.