Nolan’s Notes: Finding Your Sweet Spot
Standard of Excellence: Delivering Excellence—A Daily Goal
Knocking Down the Bone Pile: Tin Whisker Mitigation in Aerospace Applications, Part 3
Foxconn Raising Share of Automation Involvement in Pepper Robot Assembly Line
September 22, 2015 | TrendForceEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Pepper, a humanoid intelligent robot developed by Japanese telecom giant Softbank, has been an incredible success in its home country. The first batch of 1,000 Pepper units that was released to the Japanese consumer market earlier this June was sold out under a minute, as with later waves of limited pre-orders. These impressive results show that humanoid intelligent robots have successfully entered the general Japanese consumer market. The latest analysis from Topology Research Institute (TRI), a division of TrendForce, estimates that the combined rental and sales volume of Pepper will reach 27,000 units by 2018, with almost 90% of the customer base made up of general consumers.
“Both the market acceptance and demand for Pepper-like intelligence service robots (including companion robots, nursing robots and etc.) are rising among Japanese families,” said Harrison Po, photonics and innovative technologies analyst at TrendForce. “Likewise, demand from enterprises, retail services and financial institutions for humanoid intelligent robots that can smoothly communicate and interact with people is also growing in Japan.”
Po added that Softbank has conducted an aggressive marketing campaign that involves deploying Pepper robots at its stores and offer affordable prices and monthly fees (for Cloud services). Besides raising Pepper’s popularity and acceptance among Japanese consumers, the campaign has also resulted in trial purchases by enterprises in different sectors. The fourth round of pre-orders for Pepper is scheduled at the end of this September, and Softbank has further announced that an enterprise version of the robot will be available for pre-ordering in October. Softbank aims to expand Pepper’s market demand by introducing it to the business application market.
The number of robots sold and rented keeps rising along with those deployed in Softbank’s shops. Foxconn, the contract manufacturer in charge of assembling Pepper, is now under immense pressure to meet the surge of demand.
Foxconn’s Pepper assembly plant is located at Yantai, a city in Shandong province China. The plant’s output rate was initially five units per hour, and further automation of assembly line has raised the output rate to the current 10 units per hour. In addition to plans for expanding assembly lines, Foxconn is going to raise the assembly staff at the Yantai plant from 700 to 1,000. This will increase the hourly output rate to 15 units.
Share on:
Suggested Items
Inside Aimtron’s Cross-border EMS Strategy
07/08/2025 | Nolan Johnson, SMT007 MagazineMukesh Vasani immigrated from a very small farming village in India to the U.S. in 1995 as a civil engineer. After shifting into electronics, Mukesh built his Chicago-based company, Aimtron, into a successful enterprise by combining quality with competitive pricing. He leveraged his roots in India to expand manufacturing without compromising on quality.
Be the Partner Engineers Can Rely On
07/08/2025 | Nolan Johnson, SMT007 MagazineGreen Circuits’ unique niche in the electronics manufacturing industry comes partly from its location in Silicon Valley, but also from its specialty of serving up quick-turn prototypes and low-volume work with high-complexity production. In this conversation, CEO Michael Hinshaw emphasizes the value of end-to-end services, especially while the pace of R&D development is accelerating amidst a growing demand for complexity across industries.
Hon Hai Reports New June Sales High Amid AI Boom
07/07/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamTaiwan-based manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. reported on July 5 that its sales for June rose 10 percent from the previous year, driven by cloud and networking growth because of the boom in artificial intelligence (AI), the Taipei Times reported.
Horizon Sales Celebrates 10 Years of Exceptional Service by Sales Leader David Smith
07/02/2025 | Horizon SalesHorizon Sales, a premier manufacturers’ representative and distributor for the electronics assembly industry, is proud to announce that David Smith is celebrating 10 years with the company this month.
EU Defence Electronics Ecosystem Highlighted in Brussels
07/01/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamIn this interview, Alison James, senior director of Global Electronics Association—Europe (formerly IPC), discusses the European Defence & Security Summit in Brussels, June 9–13, as well as the first IPC–ASD Europe Defense Electronics Summit, June 10th, which brought together 70 leaders from across the electronics manufacturing supply chain. ASD is the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe, and co-hosted both the larger and smaller events.