IFR's (International Federation of Robotics) research showed that the global sales of industrial robots reached a new high of 248,000 units in 2015, witnessing a 12% year-on-year growth and continuing to achieve a new record sales in three straight years. Asia, in particular, has shown strong growth. China has topped the chart for three years in a row, selling around 68,000 industrial robots in 2015—a 17% growth against 2014. Korea and Japan occupied the second and third places, selling 67,000 and 35,000 industrial robots, respectively. China, Korea and Japan together took up over half of the global sales in 2015. IFR forecast that, by 2018, around 2.3 million industrial robots will be deployed on factory floors—more than twice as many as in 2009 (1.0 million).