A comprehensive industry report released this week shows warehouse automation investment across Asia-Pacific reached a record $4.2 billion USD in 2024, with projections suggesting continued growth through 2025.
Australia Leads Per-Capita Spending
Despite having a smaller total market than China or Japan, Australia ranked first in per-capita automation investment, driven by:
- Persistent labour shortages in logistics
- High wage costs making automation ROI attractive
- Growing e-commerce volumes requiring faster throughput
Most Popular Technologies
The report identified the top automation investments by category:
- Goods-to-person systems - 34% of spend
- Automated sortation - 28% of spend
- Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) - 22% of spend
- Automated storage and retrieval - 16% of spend
SMB Adoption Growing
Notably, small and medium businesses increased automation adoption by 45% year-over-year, largely through:
- Cloud-based warehouse management systems
- Modular automation solutions with lower upfront costs
- Robotics-as-a-service subscription models
The trend suggests automation is no longer exclusive to enterprise operations, with accessible solutions enabling smaller 3PLs to compete on efficiency.