Servo System is a feedback control system used to precisely follow or reproduce a process. Servo system makes the position, orientation, state of the object output controlled variables can follow the arbitrary change of the input target (or given value) of the automatic control system. The following figure is the main component of a servo system:

Among them, the instruction device refers to the device that sends control instructions to the servo system, which we call the servo controller. At present, servo controllers mainly have the following types:
Based on PLC control: At present, the mainstream configuration is PLC main controller + dedicated servo module. For some occasions with low precision, servo control can be accomplished only by using the main controller of PLC, but for some advanced servo occasions, such as arc compensation and linear compensation, special servo module must be equipped.
PC-Based Control Card: PC-based Servo Card products, with strong computing power, can achieve complex servo functions. And it can be customized according to the special needs of users.
Special Controller: Controller used for certain industries or applications. For example, CNC industry has a special CNC system as a controller.
In this report, the general concept of servo controller is introduced, but no specific analysis is made.
The servo system in the box above is the focus of this report. A typical servo system consists of a servo driver and a servo motor, as well as a servo feedback device (encoder). At present, encoders are usually embedded in servo motors.

Table: Servo Product Definition and Product Categorization

According to the type of driving motor, it can be divided into DC servo and AC servo, analog servo and digital servo according to the different methods of controller implementation, and open-loop control system, single-loop control system, double-loop control system and multi-loop control system according to the number of closed-loop in the controller. According to the different transmission machinery in machine tools, it is divided into feed servo and spindle servo.
High-end, middle-low-end definitions
There are two dimensions in the discrimination of high, middle and low-end.
From the appearance, it is decided by the origin, price and application industry of servo products.
Essentially, the positioning accuracy, performance and stability of servo products are the key factors. Location accuracy is related to the choice of encoder, performance is related to the operation ability of driving hardware and the value of program source, and stability is related to the material and components of motor.
On the contrary, positioning accuracy, performance and stability also determine the application industry and price of servo products.
Time definition
All data in the report are based on the natural year, from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018. For some foreign suppliers, the fiscal year does not match the natural year. We adjust the data to the natural year data and divide the market data into four quarters.
Definition of performance unit
The performance units of automation products in this report are all millions of RMB (MRMB), excluding tax.
Geographical definition
The research area is limited to the mainland of China, excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.
The market defined in the report is for mainland users only and achieves sales revenue in mainland China. It includes products used for export equipment and parts purchased in mainland China, and does not include markets formed by products imported with foreign equipment.
This survey is divided into five regions: Northeast China, North China, East China, South China and Southwest China. The specific provinces are as follows:

Table: Regional Division

Industry definition
The industry owners in this survey mainly refer to the definitions of the National Bureau of Statistics and the Industry Association. Because the application of servo products has distinct characteristics of OEM industry, this report mainly divides the OEM market into industries.

Table 3: OEM Industry Definitions

Data source: National Bureau of Statistics

Servo Overall Market Analysis
Analysis of China Servo Market from 2016 to 2021
A-1.In 2018, China's servo market still maintained growth momentum, but the growth rate slowed down substantially.
In 2018, there is a controversy over the sustainability of profit recovery for manufacturing enterprises. With the outbreak of Sino-US trade war, heavy national debt, difficulty in social financing, and rising prices of raw materials, the downstream market is cautious in investment, and the wait-and-see mood is intensified. The rapid cooling of OEM market has led to a sharp slowdown in the growth of servo demand.

Table 1: Expectation of China Servo Market Scale Growth (2016-2021E)

A-2.The servo market will decline in 2019 and turn around in 2020-2021.
According to the current form of MIR, the growth rate of China's servo market will further decline or even negative growth in 2019. The reasons are as follows:
On the macro-environment level: Since the third quarter of 2018, China's manufacturing market has started to decline, and the fourth quarter is worse. From the current situation of Q1 in 2019, the situation in 2019 will not be optimistic.

Industry Application Level: Machine Tool Industry with large servo consumption keeps declining as a whole; Industrial Robot Industry, affected by the slowdown of EU-end investment, will have weak growth in 2019; Electronic Industry, leading enterprise Apple in mainland China's development is not as expected, and has been excluded by domestic manufacturers, and investment in 2019 will continue to decrease. Domestic manufacturers will have a wave of investment based on 5G new technology, but 5G has not yet been commercialized, and the driving effect is limited; lithium industry, driven by the double integral policy, is expected to be optimistic in 2019; other traditional industries, such as packaging, textile, printing, may show a downward trend under the economic pressure of 2019.
From 2020 to 2021, with the gradual commercialization of 5G, the updating of 3C technology and the increasing demand for machine replacement, a new round of growth will appear in China's servo market.
B. Scale Segmentation of China Servo Market in 2018
B-1.2018 China Servo Market Scale Segmentation - Subsuppliers
The growth situation of the servo market in 2018 is not as prosperous as that in 2017, which slows down considerably compared with that in 2017.
In the servo market in 2018, the top three are still firmly occupied by Japanese servo brands, with Japanese servo Ankawa accounting for 14.9%, ranking first, followed by Panasonic and Mitsubishi.

Table 2: Performance and Market Share of China's Main Servo System Suppliers in 2018

B-2. Scale Segmentation of China Servo Market in 2018
The performance of Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturers with the highest share in 2018 has generally declined, which is related to the downturn of their dominant industries such as electronics and machine tools; the share of European and American manufacturers has increased slightly, and Siemens is the most representative. Siemens'growth in packaging, lithium-ion and other industries is more obvious in 2018; under the background of the cooling down of the environment, domestic servo industry depends on However, with the rapid growth, the foreign capital market has been replaced by textile, lithium-ion, industrial robots, electronics, logistics and other industries, and the share has increased more. The typical ones are Huichuan and Eston. The common characteristics of domestic servo systems are: 1) strong price competitiveness; 2) continuous improvement of servo technology; 3) better development of customized machine models in specific industries.

Figure: Scale Segmentation of China Servo Market in 2018 - Euro-American/Japanese/Korean Taiwan/Mainland Departments

B-3.2018 China Servo Market Scale Segmentation-Downstream Application Industry
Servo products are mainly used in OEM market, in which machine tools, electronic machinery, textile machinery, packaging, industrial robots, lithium batteries and other industries are the main application market of servo.
In 2018, the growth rate of China's general servo market slowed down dramatically. Compared with 2017, textile, packaging, paper towel, laser, liquid crystal and other industries grew slowly. New industries with large servo consumption, such as industrial robots and lithium batteries, developed less rapidly than the boom in 2017; and the demand for servo in machine tools, electronics, rubber, printing and other industries. There was a decline.

Table 3: Size of China's Servo Market in 2018 - Sub-industries