The Rise Of The Roomba Vacuum Shows There Is Huge Business Potential In The Home Robot Industry

iRobot, a Massachusetts company, has shipped more than 10 million Roomba robotic vacuums since the device launched in 2002, and it's shipping over 1 million Roomba units annually.

In a new report from BI Intelligence we reveal that iRobot has shipped over 6 million home robots, including Roombas, in the last four years and a half. We also assess the market for consumer and office robots, taking a close look at the three distinct applications within this market, and how this emerging category now represents nearly all the growth in the increasingly diverse global robotics industry.

Consider:

• We believe the market for home and office robots will grow from $673 million in 2014 to $1.5 billion in 2019, for a five-year CAGR of 17.39%. Note: Our estimate for the size of the consumer/office robot market excludes devices marketed to children as toys.
• That means the market for consumer and office robots is growing seven times faster than the one for industrial robots.
• One company, iRobot, is set to break the $500 million revenue mark this year on the back of home robots.
• iRobot's success has attracted major manufacturers to the robotic floor cleaning market, including LG, Samsung, Neato, Hoover and others. Robotic vacuums have only achieved ~15% penetration in North America, Europe, and Asia. (See chart, below.)

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In full, the report:

• Dives into why the multibillion-dollar global market for robotics, long dominated by industrial and logistics uses, has begun to see a shift toward new consumer and office applications.
  
• Explains how the consumer/office robot market is currently led by three distinct categories: home cleaning and maintenance, "telepresence" (i.e., telecommuting to events or remote offices), and advanced home entertainment robots.
• Analyzes why smartphones and tablets have made it easier to develop robots for consumer and office applications.
• Looks at why would-be robot vendors face some major obstacles: one is the well-studied revulsion that most people feel toward robots that are too humanoid in appearance, and another is the high price demanded for key object manipulation technologies.

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