Robots Are Moving Beyond Automotive. India Should Pay Attention

There has been a fairly consistent gravitation of the industrial robot market for years, and it has been the centre of the automobile factory.

The volumes and repeatability required for expensive robotic systems were provided by welding, painting, and body assembly and material handling. Automotive firms could create highly structured production environments with robots, with the economic considerations being rather simple.

That’s the way it has been but not anymore.

The most recent data on North American industrial robotics comes from the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a valuable insight into the future of industrial robotics. In the second quarter of 2026, companies made orders for 8,940 robots valued at $622 million, which equates to a 4.3% rise in the number ordered and an impressive 21.3% growth in the value of the orders placed, versus the same quarter of 2025. What’s more important, however, is that non-automotive customers took up 56 percent of the robot units ordered this quarter. 

So the headline isn’t really about the $622 million. It is related to the people who are purchasing the robots. In the second quarter, the semiconductor and electronics industry placed orders for 38% more robots than in the same quarter last year. Food and consumer goods and metals each increased 18%, and automotive components increased 20%. Other growth sectors were life sciences and pharmaceuticals/biomedicine. Semiconductor/Electronics and Photonics increased 35%, Life science/ Pharmaceutical/biomedicine 32%, Automotive components 24% and Food and Consumer goods 17% for the first half of 2026. 

Well this is a much more interesting development than another quarter of good automotive automation.

The end of the “robot = car factory” era

The old way of thinking about robotics is based on the assumption that robots are for use in “high volume” environments, where products are repeatable, and processes are standardized thousands of times. But a lot of industries which were not characterized as such before, are now gaining those qualities.

Precision is a key requirement in electronics manufacturing, along with ever-faster product cycles. Production of semiconductors requires a very controlled manner of handling. Pharmaceutical manufacturing has high standards for quality and traceability. Food processing involves repetitive handling, packaging and palletising operations and these are accompanied by the growing complexity of product mixes.

In the manufacturing sector, even metals are considering the use of robotics for its benefits on safety, productivity and consistency. That is, the economic case for robots is no longer just about replacing repetitive labor.

It’s being constructed with precision, quality, throughput, safety, traceability and the ability to make production in the face of workforce limitations increasingly more important.

This is significant for India, as the Indian manufacturing industry is attempting to climb the value chain, all while expanding its production capacity.

The country can’t wait for factories to come to full maturity to think about automation.

Automation can be a component of the very process by which factories become competitive worldwide in a number of sectors.

North America’s lesson for India: look beyond the automotive OEM

The history of robotics in India has also been greatly focused on automotive manufacturing.

The latest data from the International Federation of Robotics shows that, indeed, this is the case. India placed 9,120 industrial robots in 2024, a 7% increase from the previous year, and is the sixth largest market in the world for annual installed industrial robots. The automotive industry made up approximately 45% of installations. The automotive parts suppliers alone installed 2100 robots, representing a 40% rise. 

It is nothing wrong if the automakers are leading the market. Indeed, it’s a sensible beginning.

Welding, painting, assembly, machine tending, inspection and material handling are all processes in which a robot can be used in the production of Indian vehicles.

But, what is a more useful question about the North American read on the latest data? So what happens when the next wave of Indian robotics demand comes from electronics, pharmaceuticals, food, logistics, metals and so many other industries?

There lies the potential of India’s opportunity to increase significantly. There is a huge manufacturing base in this country, but the penetration of automation is much less than in the most automated economies. Data from IFR shows that India’s operational stock is around 52,570 industrial robots compared to the world’s most automated manufacturing countries that operate several hundred thousand to over two million robots.  India is by no means at the end of its robotics journey! It’s still pretty young.

Electronics could be the next major test

In fact, if there is any sector that needs special mention in India, then it is the electronics sector. The government’s push to promote electronics and component manufacturing in the country, along with schemes like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) has led to India’s electronics manufacturing ambitions reaching unprecedented heights.

However, the automation requirement for electronics manufacturing is different from that of typical auto companies. Things can move quickly. Components are small. Tolerances are tight. Inspection expectations are challenging. Production lines must be flexible.

This presents an opportunity for smaller robotic systems, rather than just large industrial arms, as well as cobots, machine vision, and machine intelligence-powered inspection. That’s where the North American numbers are going. In Q2 2026, the semiconductor and electronics and photonics sector raised robot orders by 38%, while the first half was up 35% compared to the same period last year.  India is establishing an electronics manufacturing system when electronics specific needs are becoming more amenable to being met by robots.

Pharma and life sciences could be another hidden robotics market

Putting a robot at the end of an assembly line might not be the larger opportunity. It might be building an integrated production space that combines robots, machine vision with automated inspection and digital work instructions and manufacturing software into a single system.

Another potential hidden robotics market may be pharma and life sciences. The same applies to drugs.

India is one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical manufacturing hubs, yet pharmaceutical production isn’t just about manufacturing more tablets or vials.

It’s all about consistency and compliance.

Repeatability is needed in handling, filling and packaging, inspection, laboratory automation as well as material movement. Human intervention is still important; however, there are numerous opportunities to minimise variation.

The North American data is of particular interest here. Overall, the number of robot orders rose 32% in the life sciences, pharma and biomedicine sector in the first half of 2026, with collaborative robots making up 43.7% of orders during that time. 

The latter number is noteworthy.

It suggests that automation in these environments does not necessarily require separating people from machines behind large safety fences.

Cobots can become the bridge between manual operations and full automation.

For India’s pharmaceutical manufacturers, particularly those operating highly controlled environments, this could make robotics increasingly attractive.