On March 22, 2018, Midea Group issued a notice regarding the establishment of a joint venture with the KUKA Group and the establishment of a new production base. The announcement revealed that the KUKA Supervisory Board has approved its general industrial business in China and Swisslog Holding AG - Shige', a subsidiary company of KUKA, implements advanced automation solutions for hospitals, warehouses and distribution centers - China Business Consolidation, and establishes a joint venture with Midea Group Co., Ltd. to undertake the above business. Both shareholders of the joint venture company will each Holding 50% of the shares. The US side stated that the establishment of the joint venture will further promote the penetration and expansion of the KUKA business in the Chinese market.
In addition, the announcement stated that the two parties will build a new production base in Shunde Science and Technology Park in China, and develop new products. Until 2024, the robot production capacity will reach 75,000 units per year. Together with the existing production capacity, the total annual robot production capacity in China will reach 100,000 units. .
Competition heights
During AWE2018, Midea’s display area for KUKA accounted for about one-third of the total US booth. In addition to the six-axes robot arm of the previous “press line” imitating the manual beer, this time, Midea also showed its focus on medical treatment. Logistics related automation solutions.
Six-axis robot
Take the KUKA medical manipulator as an example. The doctor uses a wearable device to replicate the movements of the human arm on the robot arm of the remote control, and can perform B-ultrasound examination for the patient within a thousand miles, and perform surgery. 'Using this intelligent medical treatment The state can solve problems such as shortage of doctors or inconvenience for patients, such as the overcrowding of the top-three hospitals in big cities, inadequate medical conditions in small and medium-sized cities, and the use of remote control and intelligent robots to enable quality health care to reach a wider range of people.
Remote B
Remote surgery
And KUKA's intelligent robotic wheelchairs can greatly facilitate the lives of people with disabilities or rehabilitation treatment. Such wheelchairs can accept the owner's call, arbitrarily turn, automatically move up and down, and can transform into a simple medical bed, helping users to reduce People depend on and live more freely.
Medical Assistant Robot
In addition, there is Andre Logistics, which can move shelves, move goods, and load and unload goods; robots shuttle between 'courtesy' and 'buskiness' scenes, but scenes are busy but methodical.
Ande Logistics System
Ande fluid system
This year's government work report first mentions 'developing an industrial Internet platform' and injects a strong boost to related industries. The Industrial Internet is an industry and application ecosystem formed by the deep integration of the Internet and manufacturing industries, helping enterprises achieve intelligent production and networking. Collaboration, customization and service transformation.
The industrial Internet industry chain is divided into three levels: the upper, middle, and lower levels. The upstream mainly involves cloud computing, data collection, analysis, management, and integration; the middle reaches involve equipment and automation companies, manufacturing companies, industrial software, and information technology companies; Vertical domain users and third-party developers.
As a midstream company, Midea announced a strategy for a new era of man-machines during AWE2018, indicating that it entered the Industrial Internet, and after Kuka and Kochi, Midea created a company called Miyun Smart, which will establish itself in the manufacturing industry. The supply chain experience translates into software systems and enterprise cloud platforms and promotes sales.
Increased uncertainty
The U.S. acquisition of KUKA has been recognized by the industry as an important turning point in the history of U.S. development. However, from the first three quarters of 2017, U.S. business seems to be dragged down by KUKA. On January 7, 2017, U.S. announced that it has completed The acquisition of KUKA collectively held 37.6 million shares in KUKA Group, which accounted for approximately 94.55% of the KUKA Group's issued share capital. The price was 3.7 billion euros, or approximately 27 billion yuan.
According to the latest data, in 2017, KUKA achieved a revenue of nearly 3.5 billion euros, of which the Chinese market contributed 450 million euros. And the United States’ revenue for the first three quarters of 2017 was 186.849 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 60.74%. Whether it is a comparison of the former Year-on-year growth rates, or with Haier, Gree's revenue growth, the United States' revenue growth far ahead.
However, compared with deducting non-net profit, U.S. performance was suspected to be dragged down by KUKA. In the first three quarters of 2017, U.S. realized non-net profit of RMB 14.998 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.21%, and the growth rate did not increase, but dropped compared to Qingdao Haier. 32.31% of Gree Electric Appliances, 32.78% of Gree Electric Appliances, lower profit growth.
According to the third quarterly report of KUKA, its after-tax net profit in the first three quarters of 2017 was 19.2 million euros, compared to 48.5 million euros in the same period of 2016, which was a year-on-year drop of 60.41%, which was the first sharp decline in the three quarterly reports in four years. Happened to happen after the acquisition of the United States.
Shen Wanhongyuan reported that KUKA really helped the United States to increase the size of its revenue, but the synergy it brings is not as beautiful as it was imagined.
However, this research report also pointed out that the profit margin of the system business is relatively low among several Kuka business, which is mainly limited by the suppression of downstream customers (more in Europe and America). In the future, from the perspective of China and global trends, the automation industry With clear potential, Kuka’s own performance growth is definitively strong, and it is expected to achieve a revenue of 4-5 billion euros by 2020, in which China’s revenue will be changed from 500 million euros to 1 billion euros. Currently, the focus of KUKA’s business is in the automotive industry. In the future, its proportion in 3C automation and other fields will further expand. There is no essential difference in its technology migration to other manufacturing industries such as home appliances. With the improvement of the customer structure in the later period, the profit rate is expected to further increase.
In recent years, in the field of industrial automation and intelligence, the United States has performed frequently. In addition to the layout of the industrial Internet, it has also begun to move from technological followers to leaders in the field of smart home appliances, such as the founding of the Central Research Institute of the United States, to dig out talents and conduct basic work. Scientific research, etc. Recently, Midea announced the development of biometric identification technology, and reached a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement with Galaxy Drops, Chinese Academy of Sciences Automation to jointly study core technologies in the field of smart home appliances, especially the long-distance gait recognition technology for home environments. The US side stated that Recognition is one of the important steps in the intelligentization of home appliances. Only the machine can be used by users to achieve data accumulation and deep learning, so that household appliances can be smarted to meet individual needs. Gait recognition is applicable to a wide range of objects and does not require active identification of the recognition target. Participate, application is convenient.