3C products refer to the general term for computers, communications, and consumer electronics, among which mobile phones are the most important component of 3C products. China's smartphone shipments reached 472 million units, a year-on-year increase of 8.7%, accounting for 32% of the global market share. The 3C industry has a wide variety of components, many of which do not require high technology, and there is significant room for domestic substitution.

The vigorous development of domestic mobile phones has brought a huge terminal market to downstream components. With the significant increase in domestic residents' income and consumption capacity, as well as the commercialization of 4G, people's demand for mobile terminals such as smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices continues to expand, showing a rapid growth trend in China's consumer electronics market. China is the world's largest manufacturer of 3C products, with about 70% of electronic products manufactured and assembled in China.

According to the "2020-2025 China 3C Automation Equipment Industry Market Deep Analysis and Investment Strategy Consulting Research Report" published by the China Research Institute of Industry, it shows:

In 2016, the overall scale of the domestic consumer electronics market exceeded 2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%, making it the largest consumer electronics market in the world; the 3C sector leads the entire consumer electronics product industry, with a growth scale of 8.4%; the market size of China's 3C products has entered a stable development stage since 2014, with the market space of China's 3C equipment industry in 2016 being about 361.4 billion yuan.

Current Status of the 3C Automation Equipment Industry

As the core driving force of technology and internet development, communication products, computer office, and digital imaging saw rapid growth in China's 3C market in 2016, and it is expected that there will still be significant growth space in the 3C market in 2017. However, the penetration rate of automation equipment in our country is very low, currently about 15%-25%. The market space of China's 3C automation equipment industry in 2016 was about 90.35 billion yuan, and it is expected that by 2020, the space for automation equipment can be increased to 250 billion yuan.

China is the world's largest manufacturer of 3C products, and the level of automation is still relatively low, with significant room for improvement. The manufacturing of 3C products can be divided into production, processing, component assembly, complete machine assembly, maintenance, packaging, and other links, with about 70% of electronic products manufactured and assembled in China. The demand for production equipment in China's 3C processing market is huge.

Currently, the automation rate of production equipment in our country is still at a low level, and the industry penetration has not yet reached saturation. The density of industrial robots, as an important indicator of industrial automation rate, was only 49 units per 10,000 people in China in 2015, which still has a significant gap compared to advanced manufacturing countries like Japan, South Korea, and Germany.

The competition in the 3C manufacturing industry is fierce, and the demographic dividend in China is gradually disappearing, driving the industry to improve its automation rate from the cost side. Currently, China's 3C production enterprises mainly exist in the form of OEM, producing products with low added value, mainly relying on the comparative advantage of labor, resulting in low profit levels.

With the gradual disappearance of China's demographic dividend, the gradual rise in manufacturing labor costs, and the overall strength of domestic component companies, automation in the 3C industry is the only solution that can effectively reduce production costs.