ABB Robotics

Nabtesco, which estimates it supplies about 60% of the joint reducers in medium and large industrial robots, said component segment orders rose 16.2% to ¥82.4 billion in 2025 and operating income more than doubled to ¥5.4 billion. The Tokyo-listed company forecasts precision reduction gear sales of ¥88.2 billion in 2026, with robot demand recovering mainly in the second half, while its Changzhou plant already runs at 115% utilisation.

Teradyne said its Universal Robots and MiR unit booked $89 million of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025, up about 19% on the third quarter but below $98 million a year earlier. Full year robotics revenue fell to $308 million from $365 million, and restructuring in the unit affected about 400 employees, while group revenue rose 44% in the quarter on AI chip test demand.

ABB's robotics division, now reported as a discontinued operation ahead of its USD 5.375 billion sale to SoftBank Group, booked 2025 revenue of USD 2,331 million and income from operations of USD 294 million, ABB disclosed with its fourth-quarter results on 29 January 2026. Fourth-quarter operating income fell to USD 37 million from USD 71 million as expenses rose 48%, while gross margin improved.

FANUC released an open-source ROS 2 driver, made Python standard on its robots and showed NVIDIA-based physical AI demonstrations at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. Yaskawa Electric and SoftBank Corp. signed a memorandum to build office robots that split AI between the mobile network edge and the robot. Organisers counted a record 673 exhibitors and 156,110 visitors over the show's four days.

SoftBank Group will acquire ABB Robotics for an enterprise value of US$5.375 billion, the two companies said on 8 October 2025, replacing ABB's plan to list the unit separately in 2026. The division had 2024 revenue of US$2.279 billion and about 7,000 employees, and the deal needs approval in the EU, China and the US before an expected close in mid-to-late 2026.

The International Federation of Robotics said on 25 September 2025 that 542,000 industrial robots were installed worldwide in 2024, the second-highest annual total on record and 2% below 2023. Japan (44,500 units, down 4%), the Republic of Korea (30,600, down 3%) and Germany (26,982, down 5%) all contracted, while China installed 295,000 units and domestic Chinese makers took 57% of their home market for the first time.

Skild AI on July 29, 2025 named and described its robotics foundation model, the Skild Brain, a two-layer system pre-trained on simulation and internet video that the company says runs across quadrupeds, humanoids, table-top arms and mobile manipulators. The launch carried no customers or prices, but set out the body-agnostic strategy that later underpinned a $14 billion-plus valuation and more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Doosan Robotics agreed on 28 July 2025 to buy 89.59% of ONExia, an Exton, Pennsylvania robot integrator, for a final KRW 37.41 billion (USD 27.19 million) in cash, closing on 17 September 2025. ONExia has since absorbed Doosan's US sales arm, won Haleon packaging contracts and swung to a loss as the merged unit, while Doosan raised its stake to 94.12%.

ABB said on 17 April 2025 it will propose a full spin-off of its Robotics division at its 2026 AGM, with trading in the new company planned for the second quarter of 2026. The division, which ABB calls the global number two in robotics, had about US$2.3 billion of 2024 revenue and a 12.1% operational EBITA margin, while its business area's first-quarter margin fell to 9.9% even as orders rose 14%.