Warehouse Automation Companies to Watch in 2027: What the 2026 Numbers Show

Warehouse automation companies are diverging heading into 2027. Compare six vendors on orders, backlog and risk and learn how to match one to your operation.

Warehouse automation companies were on divergent tracks in the final quarter of 2026. Daifuku's first-half orders rose 31.6% to ¥440.1 billion, while KION's automation segment, including Dematic, booked €1.824 billion compared to a record €2.201 billion a year earlier.

The difference matters as 2027 looks set to be a build year. Interact Analysis expects warehouse construction to firm up toward the end of 2026 and into 2027 and it is new builds into which fixed systems are sold. Anyone picking a partner for these systems is picking for that cycle.

This article compares six vendors by virtue of their latest reported results, flags the ways in which headline figures are misleading and aims to provide an approach to comparing a potential vendor against an operation. It is a ranking, but not one that purports to be any kind of industry standard, as no one source has that authority.

How large is the warehouse automation market and why are there conflicting figures?

It is all over the place.

Mordor Intelligence estimates the market to be worth $29.98 billion in 2025 and $65.74 billion by 2031, growing at a 13.98% compound annual rate, against a figure for 2026 of just below $34.17 billion. A separate analysis from Market Growth Reports pegs 2026 at about $26.08 billion. That represents a difference of $8 billion between the two forecasts in a single year.

Analysts who follow orders tell a different story. Interact Analysis said revenue grew 1% in 2024 and in January 2026 raised its forecast for 2025 order intake to see a 7% gain. It also forecasts a slowdown in 2028 due to uncertainties around the US political situation. The window for 2027 is a real one, but it does have an end date.

How much are firms spending on supply chain technology?

Spotty figures, but a good start is the 2026 MHI Annual Industry Report, created jointly with Deloitte, which used a survey of more than 500 logistics and manufacturing executives. Some 56% intend to increase investment in technology and innovation and 52% expect to spend more than $1 million and 17% over $10 million, according to the report's summary. Robotics and automation ranked as the second-most disruptive technology after artificial intelligence, with 39% estimating its impact to be significant or greater than, up 16 points.

The report also underlines a tightening of scrutiny: companies are focusing on identifying exactly which problem they want to solve with a technology investment before making a purchase. For vendors, that means a greater hurdle to jump over in proving out value improvements to order flow and cost per order.

Which warehouse automation companies are on top at the start of 2027?

Six vendors stand out based on their results for 2026: two integrators, a cube-storage specialist, a case-handling robotics company, a grocery platform and an AMR maker. Here you see each using the latest reported period for the company, so a mixture of dates and currencies.

Reconciling the table takes care. Daifuku is generally described as the largest supplier by revenue, but KION recommends it as the world’s leader on 2024 revenue. The discrepancies probably reflect differences in definitions, as Daifuku also makes cleanroom and airport systems.

AutoStore’s quarter was spectacular, but the company guided for a revenue of about $700 million against $357.8 in the first half, implying about $342 in the second-half: only 7% above the same period last year. That is the figure we get when extrapolating from the published figures by the company.

What sets the winners apart?

A close customer relationship, suggests Interact Analysis. Rowan Stott notes that spend in 2025 “was skewed towards vendors with close customer relationships,” giving the examples of focused suppliers Symbotic, Witron and Krones’ System Logistics. The latter had the largest regional market share in Americas in 2025, becoming the world’s biggest vendor in the process. However, the chart published with the article shows that generalist suppliers grew faster than focused ones in technology-intensive sectors: so much for the universality of the approach.

Dematic is a good example of the “not putting all eggs in one basket” strategy. In the second quarter, pure-play e-commerce orders were responsible for 46% of business-solutions sales at Dematic, while the other industrial sectors saw the order volume increase by almost twice, driven by food and beverage, parcel and wholesale. A broad specialization helps a generalist vendor through times of platform-specific downturns, provided it has won complex enough projects.

Recurring revenues are another differentiator. Symbotic’s software sales increased by 57% year-on-year to $13 million and operations services 49% to $37 in the latest quarter, as more systems came online. Geek+ reported RMB156 million in subscription-service contracts, up over 75%, with 81,000 installed robots as of the end of the quarter. Sales of subscriptions, where the buyer pays periodically to access the software, typically suggest that the supplier has secured a long-term relationship with the customer, who has opted for a recurring cost instead of a one-time perpetual license purchase.

How should the buyer match the task to a vendor?

Start with the building block, rather than the brand.

Grocery and case-handling distribution centers: Symbotic and Witron, the two names Interact Analysis mentions in relation to grocery projects, are the obvious starting point.

High-density small-item storage: AutoStore, which has more than 1,950 installations across over 65 countries.

Large multi-industry programs under a single integrator: Dematic or Daifuku.

Scalability via modular additions of robots: Geek+ or Locus Robotics, which has secured over 150 customers across more than 350 installations as of October 2025, according to the company’s press release.

Think of these recommendations as a shortlist, rather than a definitive answer.

What do the vendor transitions and partnership breakdowns say about the risks?

Honeywell has agreed to sell its Warehouse & Workflow Solutions division, which marketed itself as Intelligrated and Transnorm and reported revenues of around $935 in 2025, to private equity firm American Industrial Partners in April. The all-cash deal was closed in July, with AIP set to combine the acquired platforms with its existing Trew warehouse management system and provide no interruptions to the customers’ operations. The buyer has not announced any changes to its strategy, but the vendors with active projects should request detailed written commitments for the continued support.

Ocado provides an example of a supplier which has become overly dependent on a single buyer. Its first-half revenue grew by 54% to £1,037, but £354 of that amount came from termination fees related to Kroger and Sobeys closing their robotic warehouses. Without the one-time payments, the growth would have been 1% to £684, with the underlying profit down by 12% to £81. The international sales at the company’s live partner networks grew by 27% for the period.

Symbotic’s record backlog serves as a reminder that the supplier’s near-term outlook is only as good as the commitments from its clients. The $22.5 billion figure, announced in the context of the Q3 conference call summary, hides the detail that only about 15% of the projects are expected to contribute to the revenue in the next twelve months. The soon-to-be released contract with Walmart for 400 back-of-store systems is not included in the backlog and the company’s CFO did not expect the postponements to affect the company’s performance before the first half of 2028.

How should the buyer evaluate the supply chain efficiency gains from automation?

Ask for the figures and validate the assumptions. Three areas, common to most vendors, serve as good areas for investigation.

First, ramp: the period between the launch and reaching the designed productivity. As per the figure cited by Quartr in its report, 56 of Symbotic’s 77 systems were “active,” which means that only 31% of the installed capacity has come online. The difference between the designed and actual capacity is an indicator of ramp risk, which is worth benchmarking across the industry.

Second, throughput and costs per order: the key metric to request is the cost per order line, units per labor hour and system uptime, ideally from a comparable live installation, rather than a published case study. Locus calculates that its Staples Canada project delivers 1 million picks every 70 days, as reported by the company, but the figure should be double-checked with the client.

The third area of inquiry is peak performance: how many units can the system process within a specified timeframe. In the context of the Locus Robotics report, the company advised that its robot-assisted installations see the robot fleet sizes grow by almost 50% at the peak of the order season. The ability to scale up the workforce during busy periods is a hallmark of the modular approach. Ask your vendors to describe their single busiest week in terms of the volume and complexity of the orders.

The results of 2026 fail to crown anyone as the clear winner. Daifuku and Dematic offer the broadest range of options, while Symbotic and AutoStore rise strongly. Ocado and Geek+ serve as cautionary tales about the speed with which the economics of a given business model may turn for the worse. Proceed selectively but decisively: cross-check figures to understand context, question projections, and scrutinize contracts for any potential risks, such as ownership of installed equipment or billings outside the contract scope.

With the improvement in utilization set to gather pace in 2027, Business Fortune asks readers to consider shortlisting early and starting pilots, prioritizing technologies that will make a difference to the acceleration of time-to-market and reduction of costs across the value chain.

FAQs

Who are the biggest warehouse automation companies in 2026?

It depends on the criteria used. Daifuku is often mentioned as the largest warehouse automation company in terms of revenue, while KION Group cites the highest 2024 revenue. It is also worth noting that Symbotic has the largest installed base in the Americas, according to Interact Analysis as of mid-2025.

Which warehouse automation company is growing the fastest?

Among the six companies covered in this article, AutoStore had the best underlying growth, reporting a 43% increase in revenue (Q2 2026 vs. the same period last year). However, Ocado’s 54% revenue growth for the six months ending in September 2026 was driven by one-off fees.

How much are companies willing to spend on supply chain technology?

According to the MHI and Deloitte survey from 2026, 56% of respondents expect to increase spending on supply chain technology this year, while 52% of survey participants budgeted over $1 million and 17% over $10 million.

Is warehouse automation demand growth set to rebound in 2027?

Demand for new installations is set to rise in 2027, with the upturn gathering pace in 2028, predicts Interact Analysis. In 2026, construction activity was expected to improve in the second half of the year.

Should I choose mobile robots or fixed automation?
It depends on volume and building. Interact’s mid-2025 review upgraded fixed automation and downgraded mobile robots, but flexible fleets suit sites that need to scale in steps.