Nabtesco's robot gear orders rise for a fourth straight quarter, doubling component profit as China and Korea EV projects return

Nabtesco, the Japanese maker of the RV precision reduction gears that sit in the joints of most heavy industrial robots, said on February 12, 2026 that orders in its component solutions segment rose 16.2% to ¥82.43 billion in the year to December 2025, as robot makers finished working down inventories and Chinese and South Korean electric vehicle producers resumed factory projects. Segment operating income rose 103.2% to ¥5.42 billion, according to the company's summary of consolidated financial statements filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Sales in the segment grew 17.3% to ¥79.33 billion and the operating margin widened to 6.8% from 3.9% a year earlier. Precision reduction gears alone generated ¥78.6 billion, up from ¥66.9 billion, according to the results briefing material dated February 19. The segment's order backlog stood at ¥19.67 billion at the end of December, up from ¥16.56 billion a year earlier.

The quarterly pattern matters more than the annual total. Nabtesco said precision reduction gear orders grew quarter on quarter in each quarter of 2025, by 2%, 9%, 4% and 11%, and that fourth-quarter intake was 28% higher than a year earlier. The company described the fourth quarter as the strongest of the year. It said finished inventories at industrial robot customers had returned to appropriate levels, while demand outside robots, such as machine tools and automation equipment, stayed flat because of US tariffs.

At group level, Nabtesco reported orders of ¥323.25 billion, up 10.8%, sales of ¥307.91 billion, up 9.8%, and operating income of ¥20.73 billion, up 60.3%. Net income attributable to owners rose 55.1% to ¥15.70 billion. The figures exclude the hydraulic equipment business, which Nabtesco reclassified as a discontinued operation after agreeing to sell 70% of it to Italy's Comer Industries; the share transfer took place in January 2026, according to the briefing. Operating income absorbed a ¥1.32 billion loss on liquidating railway equipment subsidiaries and a ¥989 million goodwill impairment at Deep Sea Technologies, its Greek marine software unit.

For 2026 the company guides to group sales of ¥327.0 billion and operating income of ¥27.7 billion, a 33.6% increase and an 8.5% margin. The component segment is forecast to reach ¥88.6 billion in sales and ¥7.0 billion in operating income, with precision reduction gears at ¥88.2 billion. The first half is expected to be soft, with component sales of ¥41.8 billion and a 6.5% margin, before what Nabtesco expects to be a second-half recovery led by automotive capital spending. It expects small-scale projects in China and South Korea to continue and investment in Europe and the United States to pick up.

Capacity is now the constraint in China. Nabtesco's three precision reduction gear plants can make 1.15 million units a year, split between Tsu in Japan with 890,000 units, Changzhou in China with 170,000 and the Hamamatsu plant that opened in August 2024 with 90,000. Utilisation at Changzhou rose from 95% in the first quarter of 2025 to 115% in the fourth, while Tsu reached 70%, the company said, measured on a basis of 20 working days a month and three shifts. Sales to buyers in China rose 32.4% to ¥43.40 billion across the group, while sales to Europe slipped 1.3% to ¥59.67 billion.

The RV reducer is a two-stage cycloidal gearbox that combines a planetary stage with an eccentric, or planocentric, crank mechanism. It is built for stiffness, accuracy and shock resistance, which is why it dominates the shoulder and base joints of welding and painting robots carrying 20 kilograms or more. Nabtesco names FANUC, Yaskawa Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, KUKA and ABB Robotics among its robot customers. Strain wave gears from Harmonic Drive Systems and China's Leaderdrive are lighter and more compact and are typically used in wrists, cobots and humanoids.

That is the market Nabtesco now wants. In December 2025 it unveiled two compact lines at iREX in Tokyo, the RVmini series of strain wave gears and the Monocrank series, aimed at low-torque applications including collaborative and humanoid robots. In the February briefing it said it would offer a six-axis set, including wrist axes, for robots with payloads under 20 kilograms. The company said cumulative RV production has passed 14 million units.

Rivals are moving at different speeds. Harmonic Drive Systems reported on February 10 that sales for the nine months to December 2025 rose 4.5% to ¥42.18 billion, with orders up 13.7% to ¥44.00 billion, and that reducer sales grew 7.1%. Its China segment sales fell 28.9% as industrial robot demand there weakened, while its Japan segment grew 22.3% on robot and semiconductor equipment customers. Leaderdrive reported revenue of 406.65 million yuan for January to September 2025, up 47.36%, which it attributed to growth in orders and capacity.

Risks remain. The 2026 plan leans on a second-half recovery that Nabtesco itself has not yet seen in orders, and its assumption of ¥20.50 per yuan makes profits sensitive to China. The company estimates that a one-yen move against the yuan shifts annual sales by ¥1.46 billion and operating income by ¥221 million. Price pressure from Chinese reducer makers, which supply domestic robot builders, is a further unknown.