North America Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

Market Overview

The North American Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) Marke was valued at USD 1205.3 million in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 2675.34 Million in 2026, registering a CAGR of 14.47% over the forecast period (2021-2026). Automated guided vehicle technology is providing manufacturers in North America with many prominent and measurable benefits, such as decreased operating costs and increased throughput of materials, but they can extend further. Optimizing the first mile using material handling automation is improving company profitability and customer satisfaction throughout warehouses in North America.

• Modern manufacturing facilities in North America rely on new technologies and innovations to produce higher quality products at faster speeds with lower costs. In order to survive in the current competitive scenario, implementing more intelligent software and hardware is proving to be the only way, as the region suffers from workforce shortage.​
• Planning based on requirements has become a major concern among all the end-user industries. Further, United States is one of the largest and most advanced markets for automated material handling (AMH) solutions in the world. The strong economy, with notable port traffic, increased e-commerce activity, and key manufacturing indices, results in significant growth in manufacturing, and it is poised to drive the demand for Automated Guided vehicles in the country.​
• The formation of the "Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP)" is an initiative undertaken to make the industry, various universities, and the federal government invest in emerging automation technologies.​ This has helped the country to gain a competitive edge in the global economy substantially. The National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) consists of developing regional hubs, which are expected to develop and adopt cutting-edge manufacturing technologies for making innovative products to be implemented in the manufacturing sector.
• Further, the spread of COVID-19 in the region is expected to boost the requirement for automation and robotics (AGVs) as it is playing a critical role in several manufacturing and non-manufacturing environments.
• Additionally, with workers quarantined across North America, large industrial buildings, such as a factory or warehouse transporting heavy materials manually, have experienced a halt situation, thus severely impacting the global supply chain. DHL reported that only 5-10% of the fulfillment centers in the United States are using automated picking already. It also reported that the COVID-19 crisis presents yet another reason to automate warehouses, which may drive quicker adoption in the coming years.

Scope of the Report

Automated guided vehicles (AGV) are professional service robots that follow a guiding medium, such as a wire, magnet, or marker for navigation. They are mostly used in industrial manufacturing facilities and warehouses for moving materials with high precision.

The study covers detailed market segmentation by different types of AGV products such as automated forklifts, automated tow/tractor/tugs, unit load, assembly line, and special purpose. Also, end-user industries such as food & beverage, automotive, retail, electronics & electrical, general manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, among other end-user industries, are covered in the scope of the study. Further, software deployed in AGVs or for controlling AGVs is not considered under the scope of our study.

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Key Market Trends

Retail and Warehousing to hold Major Share

• Automation has gained major importance to improve the customer-fulfillment side of operations, particularly for retail and e-commerce, especially due to longer onboarding and training, rising benefit and compensation rates, and shortages in labor.
• The consumers in the region seek shorter delivery times, increasing the application of AGV in warehouses and distribution centers. In, addition advancements in technology have made AGV's better and smaller; lower costs and shortage of labor in some places have fueled the growth of the market studied. For instance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total number of warehouses in the United States increased from 18,736 in 2019 to 19,190 in 2020.
• A type gaining popularity has been the AGV used in sortation called the t-Sort (unit load AGV), a new material handling system used for both parcel and unit sortation. The AGV performs much like a traditional automated sortation system, such as a tilt tray or crossbelt sorter.
• Moreover, e-commerce sales in the U.S. are also increasing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, In the second quarter of 2020, adjusted U.S. retail e-commerce sales amounted to over USD 211.5 billion. In April 2020, e-commerce retail trade sales in Canada amounted to an all-time high of CAD 3.43 billion, compared to just over CAD 2.76 billion in the prime holiday shopping month of December during the previous year. This is expected to drive the demand for AGVs in the region.

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