China's service robot output falls 17.8% year on year in September even as monthly volume edges up

At about 10:00 Beijing time on Oct 19, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that China's industrial firms above designated size made 96,752 industrial robots in September, up 18.9% year on year, and 1,658,178 service robots, down 17.8%.

Both rates fell sharply from August, a comparison-base effect rather than a production drop: September's totals were 578 and 2,046 sets above August's.

Daily output rose even as the year-on-year rate fell

On the NBS definition of daily average output, which divides a month's total by its calendar days, industrial robot output rose to about 3,225 sets a day from 3,102, and service robot output to about 55,273 from 53,424.

The year-earlier month explains the swing. Working back from the published rates, September 2025 output was about 81,400 industrial robots against about 71,500 in August 2025, and about 2.02 million service robots against about 1.58 million. Those figures are approximate because the NBS matches its prior-year base to the current enterprise scope. The NBS counts industrial firms with annual main-business revenue of RMB 20 million or more, and that set of firms changes every year.

Industrial nine-month total misses the monthly figures by 31,323 sets

For January-September, industrial robot output was 794,781 sets, up 29.1%, and service robot output 15,588,372 sets, up 7.9%. Mao Shengyong, an NBS deputy commissioner, cited the 29.1% figure at a State Council Information Office press conference the same day, according to Xinhua. Industrial value added rose 5.5% in September, 0.3 points faster than in August, and high-tech manufacturing value added rose 15.3%; for the nine months the two were up 5.3% and 14.3%.

The September release and the nine-month total do not add up. January-August industrial robot output of 729,352 sets plus September's 96,752 comes to 826,104, which is 31,323 more than the published January-September figure of 794,781. The same sum for service robots, 15,590,041, is 1,669 above the published 15,588,372. The releases do not explain the gap. If the cumulative figures are the accurate ones, month-to-month volume comparisons from these releases carry an error of that size.

The cumulative service robot rate also fell, from 12.1% after August to 7.9% after September, down 4.2 points, while the industrial robot rate edged up to 29.1% from 29.0%.