BEIJING - China's industrial robot industry has developed rapidly with sales last year increasing nearly 15 percent, statistics from a Chinese think tank showed.

A total of 156,400 industrial robots were sold in China in 2018, an increase of 14.97 percent year-on-year, making the country world's largest market for industrial robots for six consecutive years, according to GGII, a Chinese think tank on emerging industries.

Tremendous development of main user industries such as automobile, high-end equipment manufacturing, and electronic and electrical appliances has boosted the sales of industrial robots, according to experts at an intelligent manufacturing industry forum Thursday.

Experts agreed that China has made progress in raising its innovation capability and local production of core components.

"Speed reducer, for example, is one of the core components of industrial robots, and we must focus on its research and development," said Liu Jinchang, a researcher with the Ministry of Science and Technology, at the forum.