UR and MiR consolidated R&D amenities and headquarters in 2024. Supply: Common Robots
Financial uncertainty has taken a toll on the robotics trade, together with main distributors. Teradyne Inc.’s robotics group laid off 10% of its world workforce this week. Teradyne owns Common Robots A/S and Cell Industrial Robots ApS, main builders of collaborative robotic arms and autonomous cellular robots, respectively.
It’s unclear precisely what number of workers had been affected by the restructuring. Nonetheless, Teradyne Robotics says on its web site that it has 1,400+ workers worldwide. The ten% discount features a 6% layoff in Denmark, the place each Common Robots (UR) and Cell Industrial Robots (MiR) are headquartered.
“The robotics trade generally has been going trough a tough patch,” Ujjwal Kumar, group president for Teradyne Robotics, informed The Robotic Report.
“UR declined 3% 12 months over 12 months, and MiR grew 1% 12 months over 12 months,” he stated. “We outperformed the market, which had double-digit declines.”
Demand for robotics didn’t meet expectations due to the post-COVID slowdown in capital, wars affecting commerce and labor, and uncertainty amongst producers, stated Kumar. “I’ve been within the industrial world for greater than 25 years, and I’ve by no means seen this kind of pullback in core low-mix, high-volume manufacturing,” he stated.
“Final 12 months was certainly one of operations consolidation for UR and MiR, and we’ve improved the standard and value of our items and on-time supply for brand spanking new merchandise,” Kumar added. “Our playbook is to outperform the market, pushed by improvements, channel transformations, and new verticals.”
Teradyne experiences ‘restructuring’ of gross sales, advertising and marketing, companies
In its earnings name for the fourth quarter of 2024, Teradyne acknowledged that its robotics enterprise was gradual as compared with its core testing enterprise.
“The economic automation market continued to be weak in This fall,” acknowledged the North Studying, Mass.-based firm. “In 2024, we mixed UR and MiR operations right into a unified robotics operations group.”
“Now in Q1 of 2025, we’re consolidating our go-to-market capabilities on the robotics stage to allow our greatest companions to promote the total UR and MiR product line and to serve our clients higher with a single customer-service group,” Teradyne stated. “This restructuring will increase our effectivity and reduces our robotics breakeven income from $440 million in 2024 to $365 million in 2025.”
The corporate stated that its whole robotics income was $365 million for 2024, with UR contributing $293 million and MiR $72 million.
Kumar stated that Teradyne is consolidating UR and MIR’s gross sales, advertising and marketing, and assist groups after specializing in new merchandise previously 12 months.
“As much as 55% of MiR’s companions are additionally UR companions, and so is 55% of its income,” he defined. “Within the outdated construction, we had an account supervisor for each calling on the identical OEMs [manufacturers], GSIs [global systems integrators], and distributors. We had a possibility to get rid of some overlap, talent up customer support, and broaden regional protection.”
“Companies had the same overlap, with totally different product traces,” Kumar added. “By combining forces, we’ll have higher protection of each geography for tech assist and restore companies below multiyear service contracts.”
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Common Robots strikes from new merchandise to new markets
Final 12 months, Teradyne stated it launched a document variety of new merchandise to develop its serviceable addressable market (SAM). They included the MiR1200 pallet jack with synthetic intelligence for pallet detection, cleanroom-rated robots for semiconductor manufacturing plus meals and beverage, and the MC600 cellular cobot.
Common Robots additionally elevated the payload capability of its UR20 and UR30 arms via software program updates. It continued to roll out its PolyScope X platform and started collaborating with NVIDIA on combining AI with its cobots. In the meantime, MiR Fleet Enterprise supplied fleet administration for autonomous cellular robots (AMRs).
“We wanted a leaner industrial group to have continued concentrate on new product launches and to have higher protection with massive accounts and OEMs,” stated Kumar. “Key verticals for us embrace logistics and warehouse, in addition to semiconductors because of issues like Teradyne’s new relationship with ADI [Analog Devices Inc.]. We’re launching a concentrate on meals and beverage and prescribed drugs.”
The MC600 is designed for dependable cellular manipulation, says MiR. Supply: Cell Industrial Robots
Kumar nonetheless bullish on world progress
Whereas Teradyne expects slower to flat progress within the first half of 2025, Kumar was nonetheless optimistic about prospects for Common Robots and Cell Industrial Robots.
In December, Common Robots opened its first manufacturing facility in China, with new fashions for that market, the UR7e and the UR12e.
“We imagine the Chinese language market is popping the nook,” famous Kumar. “We imagine that section now values better-performing, high quality ecosystem-based choices, and we’re constructing on that speculation. We have now large progress plans.”
On the identical time, rising labor shortages in manufacturing, warehousing, agriculture, meals processing, and building ought to enhance demand for automation in North America and Europe.
“We’re in talks with with main corporations throughout the U.S.,” Kumar stated. “The superior robotics house — which is extra collaborative and for high- to medium-mix jobs — also can assist the place industries have to redeploy individuals constantly. These are precisely the sort of jobs the brand new generations of cobots and AMRs can step as much as assist.”
As commerce present season begins, Common Robots will proceed to exhibit with its UR+ ecosystem companions, as seen in its UR Collaborate occasion this week.
“We’re not pulling again on our presence at these occasions,” asserted Kumar. “Our progress focus is on new product launches, and we’ll want to speak about new functions and options with clients.”
“Cell manipulation is an incremental progress driver,” he stated. “We launched two merchandise final 12 months, and we’re in all the identical human-scale functions as humanoid robots however with extra succesful, reasonably priced cellular cobots.”
“We’ll maintain bringing in additional AI-based options to broaden the applying house,” Kumar stated. “2025 will likely be a pivotal 12 months for us within the superior robotics trade.”
Editor’s notice: Steve Crowe contributed to this text.
