South Korea Automation and Industrial Control - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2026-2031)

The south korea automation and industrial control market size is projected to be USD 6.98 billion in 2025, USD 7.04 billion in 2026, and reach USD 9.23 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 5.57% from 2026 to 2031. This report is Segmented by Product (PLCs, DCS, SCADA, HMI, Process Safety, Sensors, Motors, Robotics, and More), Component (Hardware, Software, and Services), End-User (Automotive, Chemical, Semiconductor, Oil and Gas, and More), Control Level (Field Devices, Control Devices, Supervisory Systems, and More), and Geography. The Market Forecasts are Provided in Terms of Value (USD).

South Korea Automation And Industrial Control Market Trends and Insights

Government Smart Factory Subsidies and Tax Incentives

The 2026 budget boosts smart-factory grants to KRW 436.56 billion (USD 336 million), covering up to 50% of PLC, HMI and MES costs for small companies. Tax credits rise to 20% of capex, climbing to 30% when 60% of the bill is sourced from domestic suppliers, thereby favoring LS Electric, CIMON and Doosan Robotics. A government-funded testbed in Daegu let 320 firms pilot DCS and SCADA setups in 2025, yielding an 18% throughput bump before investment commitments. ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 compliance now pre-qualifies applicants, encouraging widespread sensor upgrades to support real-time emissions monitoring.

Surge in Semiconductor Fab Capacity Investments

SK hynix’s four-fab Yongin cluster broke ground in 2025, each facility demanding 12,000 motors, 45,000 sensors and 2,800 VFDs for cleanroom operations. Samsung’s contiguous six-fab expansion will lift combined capacity to 1.5 million wafers per month. Tool vendors such as ASML embedded redundant PLC architectures inside EUV units to ensure uptime, while provincial funding created an advanced-packaging hub that trains fabless firms on DCS platforms. Water-supply SCADA systems supervise 330,000 tons of daily flow from Hwacheon Dam to prevent contamination.

High Initial Installation and Re-Engineering Costs

Retrofitting an automotive line can exceed KRW 1.17 billion (USD 900,000) once process-mapping, downtime and HMI upgrades are included. SMEs operate with debt-to-equity ratios near 180% and find payback horizons beyond three years tough to finance. Integration headaches rise when multivendor DCS assets require middleware that absorbs up to 20% of budgets. Cleanroom builds for pharma sites add KRW 2.8 billion (USD 2.15 million) per 500 square-meters, while rising power tariffs stretch ROI calculations for energy-intensive fabs.

Other drivers and restraints analyzed in the detailed report include:

• Rising Labor Costs and Shrinking Workforce
• 5G Private Networks Unlock Low-Latency Industrial IoT
• Cybersecurity and Data-Sovereignty Concerns in Connected Factories

Segment Analysis

Industrial robotics generated 49.83% of overall 2025 revenue, reflecting large-scale welding and wafer-handling deployments. The automation and industrial control market size for collaborative robots amongst the other products, however, is projected to grow at a 7.31% CAGR through 2031 as ISO 10218 compliance removes fencing and frees floor space in electronics and biotech cleanrooms. Doosan’s P3020 cobot, supporting a 30 kg payload, demonstrates the new economics by cutting system-integration costs by 35% in battery-module assembly cells. PLCs and DCSs remain critical for deterministic 5-millisecond control loops in semiconductor wet benches, with LS Electric’s XGT series matching tier-one performance at lower price points. SCADA upgrades in water treatment underline the trend toward remote environmental compliance, while high-resolution HMIs such as Schneider’s Harmony iPC extend display life under aggressive wash-down regimes.

Step-change product innovation is visible in edge-AI vision sensors that sample at 10 Hz and push predictive quality analytics straight to cloud historians, compressing fault-detection latency. ABB’s System 800xA deployments at petrochemical sites integrate SIL 3 safety logic, underlining how process-risk regulation supports advanced control spend. The product mix therefore tilts toward smarter, safer and more people-friendly form factors even as classic six-axis frames dominate installed bases.

Hardware captured 60.59% of 2025 revenue, yet software is tracking a 6.02% CAGR to 2031 as subscription models proliferate. The automation and industrial control market now rewards vendors that wrap PLC firmware in AI-driven predictive-maintenance dashboards. LG Electronics’ MAVIN-Cloud reduced false defect alerts by 95% after ingesting 18 months of image data, proving the value of cloud-native analytics. CIMON’s SCADA X 3.0 eliminates dedicated HMI panels, saving KRW 85 million per line and validating software’s deflationary role. Five-year service bundles already deliver 28% of LS Electric’s automation turnover, confirming that outcome-based support is a durable revenue hedge as hardware ASPs fall.

Market-wide, SaaS MES and digital-twin simulators gain favor among cash-constrained SMEs reluctant to fund perpetual licenses. Edge gateways now embed inference engines and OPC UA stacks, further blurring hardware-software lines. As private 5G extends to plant perimeters, usage-based software pricing looks set to accelerate, aligning costs with value captured.

Complete Report Scope:

• By Product
  • Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC)
  • Distributed Control Systems (DCS)
  • Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA)
  • Human Machine Interface (HMI)
  • Process Safety Systems
  • Sensors and Transmitters
  • Electric Motors
  • Variable Frequency Drives
  • Industrial Robotics
  • Other Product Technologies
• By Component
  • Hardware
  • Software
  • Services
• By End-user Industry
  • Automotive
  • Chemical and Petrochemical
  • Semiconductor and Electronics
  • Oil and Gas
  • Power Generation
  • Water and Wastewater
  • Other End-user Industries
• By Control Hierarchy Level
  • Field Devices (Sensors, Actuators)
  • Control Devices (PLC, DCS)
  • Supervisory and SCADA Systems
  • Manufacturing Execution, Analytics and Other Control Hierarchy Levels

List of Companies Covered in this Report:

• Yokogawa Electric Corporation
• Rockwell Automation Inc.
• Honeywell International Inc.
• ABB Ltd.
• Schneider Electric SE
• Emerson Electric Co.
• Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Siemens AG
• Yaskawa Electric Corporation
• Omron Corporation
• CIMON Inc.
• POSCO DX
• Autonics Corporation
• SICK AG
• Renesas Electronics Corporation
• LS Electric Co. Ltd.
• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Automation Division)
• Doosan Robotics Inc.
• Rainbow Robotics
• Hyundai Robotics Co. Ltd.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support