In our continuous efforts to keep you informed about the progress of SoftBank Robotics restructuring, we would like to provide you with the latest information.
As some articles are potentially creating confusion for you, we would like to share with you facts to clarify the situation and the future of our robots.
SoftBank Robotics Europe, R&D center for Pepper and NAO, will be reducing its Paris’ workforce but we want to confirm that all the actions have been taken to ensure the continuity of our business with Pepper and NAO robots.- We are implementing a new distribution strategy with Master Distributors that ensure business continuity for our partners and customers:
-The appointment of RobotLAB as our Master Distributor in the USA/Canada is done.
-Discussions are close to being finalized for the Europe & Gulf Region zone.
We are not stopping, and have no intention to stop, Pepper and NAO sales and we are fully committed to ensuring the continuity of service for customer care, repair, and cloud services. As an example, we have signed a deal for the coming years for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for Pepper & NAO. All our existing and upcoming contracts with partners and customers will of course be honored.
-RobotLAB launched a new set of skills for Pepper.” To learn more visit: https://www.robotlab.com/pepper-robot
-The market demand for our humanoid robot (number of contacts) is still stronger than in 2020 despite the media reports.
-Factory line production for Pepper was indeed adjusted according to our forecasts. We currently have enough Pepper inventory to fulfill the next 18 months with the current sales demand. Will we restart producing more Pepper units? This will be decided in about 12 to 18 months, based on the inventory level and our product roadmap.
-After years of heavy investments in developing Pepper and NAO, our NAOqi OS is now mature enough to allow our focus to move to developing service robots which we believe will expand our product portfolio and benefit our humanoid product line.
By strengthening our partnership with RobotLAB, we want to set up the most efficient business organization to serve our US and Canadian customers.
Got questions, or need support? Please contact RobotLAB directly:
support@RobotLAB.com
or call the office mainline: +1-415-702-3033
or visit the website: www.RobotLAB.com
Nicolas Halftermeyer
Communications Director
SoftBank Robotics
