China Dynamics: Made-in-China robots gaining ground in Japan, global market

In recent years, Chinese robot companies have been expanding into the global market with advanced technology and flexible business strategies, and some have achieved great success.

At noon in Hachinohe, Japan, a yakiniku restaurant is bustling with customers, and the sizzling of meat fills the air. A delivery robot smoothly weaves through the narrow spaces between tables, delivering freshly cooked dishes to diners.

"The robot delivers food steadily and it's clean and safe," the restaurant manager remarked with admiration.

The delivery robot is manufactured by KEENON Robotics Co., Ltd. (KEENON), a leading robot company based in east China's Shanghai. With high labor costs and a rapidly aging population, more and more hotels, restaurants, and other venues in Japan are introducing service robots to fill labor shortages.

KEENON began to go global five years ago but faced setbacks in the Japanese market. "It is all about size. The robots that sold well in China could not even fit in Japanese restaurants," said Li Tong, founder of the company.

The team had to start from scratch to design a robot "better suited to Japan": compact, agile, equipped with a Japanese-language voice system, and featuring animated facial expressions on its screen.

The new robot was born and able to pass through corridors as narrow as 49 centimeters, with two- or three-tier trays on the back, and was fitted with multiple cameras and sensors to respond to unexpected situations in crowds.

To date, KEENON has established over 200 service sites in Japan, ensuring common malfunctions can be addressed within two hours and repaired within 24 hours.

On one occasion, staff at a chain restaurant noticed a sensor malfunction in a robot. Less than two hours after filing a repair request, KEENON's service staff arrived with a replacement robot. Before going into service, the new robot only needed a few minutes of cloud synchronization to inherit all the "memories" of its predecessor, with no retraining required.

As the company grows, its products have expanded beyond just restaurants, with businesses like hotels, libraries and venues in Japan also using the robots.

Beyond service robots, Chinese-made logistics robots are also popular in Japan.

At this year's 6th Kansai Logistics Expo in Japan, Mushiny Co., Ltd., a robotics company from Huzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, drew attention with its sorting systems and GTP (goods-to-person) solutions, showcased by Japanese companies Toshiba and Mitsubishi. Previously, its logistics robots and software systems were adopted by multiple pharmaceutical warehouses in Japan's Kanto region, meeting the growing logistics needs of the medical industry. The company also won a contract to design a new container-handling and picking robot for a well-known Japanese automaker, beating out fierce competition.

Mushiny specializes in the R&D and production of logistics robots and equipment, with over 70 percent of its products exported to developed countries. "Our orders are booked through September, and first-half sales hit a record high, up nearly 30 percent year-on-year," said He Zijie, director of the Hardware Technology Center. "Our products are increasingly common in overseas logistics automation projects."

Right now, Mushiny's robot production lines are running at full speed, producing various models daily. "Our robots' strength range is huge, from 50 kilograms to 1.5 tonnes. Whether it's moving parts in a workshop or lifting goods in an e-commerce warehouse, they can handle it," He said. With cutting-edge innovation and deep localization strategies, the company has taken root in Japan. Looking ahead, it will continue developing products to meet the needs of the local logistics industry, working toward mutual benefit.