Consumer Robot Market To Reach 100 Million Units in Five Years, Tractica Says

Nearly 100 million consumer robots will be sold over the next five years, a report from Tractica said. Household robots will be the largest segment of the market for the next few years, but robotic personal assistants will be the fastest growing segment, Tractica said Monday. Personal assistant robots, a nascent segment today, include products such as SoftBank’s Pepper or Jibo, which raised $3.7 million on Indiegogo. Tractica uses descriptors such as mobile, humanoid and anthropomorphic to characterize products that fit the category, but it doesn't factor in purely voice-based assistants such as Amazon Echo or Cubic that don’t have moving parts. The robots can play multiple roles in the home: as personal organizers, photographers or videographers, personal communicators, entertainers, emotional companions or security monitors, Tractica said. Most companies developing family robots are opening their robots to third-party developers, allowing these robots to be programmed for new use cases and applications, Tractica said. Comparing the business model to that of smartphones, the market research firm said applications are “endless,” with the app ecosystem largely driving innovation.