At the World Expo 2025 Osaka, Coca-Cola and Fuji Electric jointly unveiled the world's first hydrogen-powered smart vending machine, attracting industry attention. This device breaks free from traditional power dependency, generating electricity through the electrochemical reaction of replaceable hydrogen fuel cartridges and fuel cells, achieving zero carbon emissions and flexible deployment. Fifty-eight units on-site were also equipped with dynamic screens to visually demonstrate the power generation principle.

As a benchmark for industry innovation, smart vending machines are evolving from passive sales terminals to proactive retail ecosystems. The devices integrate core technologies such as AI algorithms, cloud analytics, and remote management, enabling automatic optimization of restocking plans, dynamic pricing, and promotional strategies based on user consumption habits and real-time inventory.

This innovation not only aligns with the global trend of low-carbon transition but also highlights the core development direction of unmanned retail as "digitalization + sustainability," providing efficient and environmentally friendly new solutions for cross-border retail scenarios.

The global smart vending machine market reached $48.45 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.34% from 2025 to 2035, continuing to unlock growth potential. The industry is undergoing a dual revolution in technology and business models, becoming a new trend for foreign trade.

Technological integration is reshaping the industry landscape, with devices deeply integrating payment systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), and data analytics technologies, and a significant increase in the adoption rate of AI visual recognition. Cashless transactions now account for 98%, and remote operation has become the global industry standard. Product and scenario expansion continues, with surging demand for healthy foods and customized products, and devices are widely penetrating scenarios such as transportation hubs and office parks.

Sustainable and energy-saving design is becoming a core competitive advantage, particularly appealing to markets in Europe and the Americas. These trends lay a solid foundation for deep innovations such as AI-driven recognition and automated shopping ecosystems, while also creating opportunities for Chinese enterprises with technological and supply chain advantages to expand overseas.

In 2023, the vending machine industry achieved a breakthrough in hardware deployment, with a comprehensive upgrade in categories and functions, accelerating the departure from the traditional single model of “beverage/snack sales.”

Several new functional products were showcased, including hot food machines capable of making fresh ramen on-site and high-end coffee machines, which, with stronger food preparation capabilities and high-definition interactive systems, provide consumers with a superior instant service experience.

Notably, the successful integration of contactless alcohol vending machines with identity recognition technology has become an important attempt for vending machines to expand into the market for legally sensitive products.

This series of innovative practices marks the industry's steady extension into the new track of “automated food and service vending.”

In 2022, the global vending machine industry broke through traditional boundaries, no longer limited to snack and beverage categories. Healthy food vending machines, fresh food, and nutritional meal vending machines, among other specific category equipment, have emerged rapidly, precisely responding to the core demand of global consumers for a healthy lifestyle.

In the international market, related innovative equipment has been launched through exhibitions and brand collaborations to expand overseas scenarios, becoming a new engine driving industry growth and highlighting the potential for scenario-based innovation in smart vending equipment.

In 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic did not spur a single explosive technological breakthrough in the vending machine industry, but it did force the industry to undergo deep upgrades and reshaping, establishing a new global development tone.

Contactless transactions and unmanned operations quickly evolved from optional features to essential requirements. To avoid cross-infection, they rapidly penetrated diverse overseas scenarios such as fresh food supermarkets in Europe and America, and community supply points in Southeast Asia, leveraging their advantages of unattended operation and instant transactions. This pushed the industry to phase out traditional equipment and transition towards safety and convenience. Simultaneously, smart networking and data-driven operations became normalized, with equipment featuring remote monitoring and inventory alerts becoming mainstream in the market.

Overseas operators relied on data analysis to optimize layouts and product structures, achieving precise operations, cost reduction, and efficiency improvement. This propelled the industry's upgrade from a simple sales carrier to a data-driven terminal, providing high-value-added solutions for the foreign trade market and solidifying the foundation for overseas expansion.

In 2019, the core breakthrough in the global vending machine industry was not limited to technological inventions in single devices, but rather the synergistic advancement of the entire industry in the three directions of intelligence, digitalization, and connectivity, achieving phased key results. This collective progress broke the previous pattern of fragmented industry technology and laid a solid foundation for industrial standardization and large-scale upgrading.

As the "foundational year" for industry transformation, the technological accumulation in 2019 paved the way for explosive innovation in the following years. Core technologies such as AI visual recognition, intelligent inventory prediction algorithms, human-computer interaction interface iteration, and advanced cashless payment experiences all completed initial technical verification and scenario adaptation in this year.

These forward-looking strategies not only reshaped the operating model of vending machines but also promoted the industry's transformation from a supplementary format of traditional retail to a digital intelligent retail terminal, laying a solid technical foundation for business model innovation in the global foreign trade market.

In 2018, the concept of "smart retail" rapidly emerged within the industry, becoming the core direction for the development of new retail.

Vending machines accelerated their deep integration with the internet, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile payments, and unmanned shelves, thus becoming an important component of the new retail ecosystem. At the same time, traditional vending machines completed their functional transformation. Their role is no longer limited to "automatic sales" but has been upgraded to smart terminals and self-service shopping entrances. Functions such as scan-to-purchase, app unlocking, and user profile identification have been implemented, driving the industry towards digitalization and intelligence.