KUKA China, under Midea Group, Signs Agreement Exceeding RMB 300 Million with Intco Group, Including 2,000 Robots

en.Wedoany.com Reported - KUKA China, under Midea Group, signed a group-level strategic cooperation agreement with Intco Medical and Intco Recycling in Foshan on July 7, with a total cooperation scale exceeding RMB 300 million, covering 1,500 sets of industrial robots, 500 sets of mobile and embodied intelligent robots, 50 sets of automated warehouses, and supporting full-chain automation solutions.

This cooperation marks an upgrade from fragmented project-based collaboration to strategic synergy across the entire industrial chain. The Intco Group owns two A-share listed companies, Intco Medical and Intco Recycling, with businesses covering three major sectors: disposable medical supplies, plastic recycling and regeneration, and finished household products. It has 13 major production bases globally, with domestic capacity concentrated in Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, and other regions, and overseas operations extending to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

According to the agreement, KUKA China will provide Intco's production bases with full-process automation solutions from process operations to warehousing and logistics, covering core links such as assembly, inspection, handling, palletizing, material storage, and transfer. To ensure project implementation efficiency, KUKA China will establish a dedicated PMO project team, following the implementation path of "single-point pilot verification—multi-base batch replication—full-line integration breakthrough," aligning with Intco's overall pace of domestic capacity upgrades and overseas base construction.

Since Midea Group completed its acquisition of KUKA AG in 2017, KUKA China has continuously advanced the localization of technology, capacity, and markets, transforming from an imported body supplier to a local scenario solution provider. Currently, KUKA has formed a diversified product matrix covering products such as LBR iisy, KUKA Genius, Delta, KUKA Production Systems, KMP1500, and KR AGILUS, serving multiple industries including automotive, e-commerce, consumer goods, logistics, aviation, and medical, offering one-stop services from industrial robots to fully automated systems.

On the production capacity side, the Midea KUKA Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Park in Shunde, Foshan, has built Guangdong Province's first fully automated robot body production line, with a single robot production cycle of approximately 30 minutes and an annual capacity exceeding 100,000 units (sets). Leveraging Midea Group's supply chain system, the localization rate of core components has exceeded 85%, significantly reducing the overall cost of complete machines compared to German-origin models, and compressing the delivery cycle from the original 8 weeks to within 3 weeks.

This cooperation involves the medical consumables and circular economy sectors, further enriching KUKA China's industry application landscape. KUKA China is accelerating its entry into fields such as new energy, photovoltaics, 3C electronics, and metal processing, with the proportion of revenue from non-automotive industries continuously increasing. According to Midea Group's 2025 annual report, the company's robotics and automation business achieved operating revenue of RMB 31.011 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8.05%; among which, the revenue share of KUKA's China operations has risen to 30%.

Intco Chairman Liu Fangyi stated that the company is accelerating the expansion of production capacity both domestically and internationally, with significant results from early-stage intelligent pilot projects. The efficiency advantages of automation transformation have been fully validated. By strengthening cooperation with KUKA this time, Intco hopes KUKA will allocate dedicated resources and accelerate the implementation and commissioning of automation projects, leveraging intelligent equipment to help Intco's global bases achieve full capacity release.

KUKA China CEO Xu Guiyou stated that KUKA will integrate global technical resources and local service capabilities. A dedicated PMO team has been established for this cooperation, adopting a "iron triangle" delivery model covering solutions, projects, and on-site operations, supported by multi-level regular meetings to control progress. The team will implement the plan step by step according to the established path, focusing on overcoming pain points in small-batch, multi-variety production, aligning with the construction pace of Intco's domestic and overseas bases, and ensuring project delivery in terms of quality and quantity.

Market sources indicate that KUKA plans to achieve a listing in China as early as 2027, with the initial proposed listing location being the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. However, related preparatory work is still in the early stages, and the final plan has not yet been determined. As of press time, Midea has not responded to this matter.