Alibaba – Robohub https://robohub.org Connecting the robotics community to the world Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:51:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 How is Pepper, SoftBank’s emotional robot, doing? https://robohub.org/how-is-pepper-softbanks-emotional-robot-doing/ Mon, 30 May 2016 13:22:00 +0000 http://robohub.org/how-is-pepper-softbanks-emotional-robot-doing/

Pepper is a child-height human-shaped robot described as having been designed to be a genuine companion that perceives and acts upon a range of human emotions. 

SoftBank, the Japanese telecom giant, acquired Aldebaran Robotics and commissioned the development of Pepper. Subsequently SoftBank joint ventured with Alibaba and Foxconn to form a development, production and marketing entity for the robots. There has been much fanfare about Pepper, particularly about it's ability to use its body movement and tone of voice to communicate in a way designed to feel natural and intuitive. 

The number of Peppers sold to date is newsworthy. As of today, there are likely close to 10,000 Peppers out in the world. Online sales have been 1,000 units each month for the last seven months with additional sales to businesses such as Nestle for their coffee shops and SoftBank for their telecom stores.

At around $1,600 per robot, 10,000 robots equates to $16 million in sales but Peppers are sold on a subscription contract that includes a network data plan and equipment insurance. This costs $360 per month and, over 36 months, brings the total cost of ownership to over $14,000. Consequently many are asking what Peppers are being used for, how they are being perceived, and whether they are useful? Essentially, how is Pepper doing? and does it offer value for money spent?

Two recent videos provide a window into Pepper's state of development. 

FINANCIAL TIMES

In a promotional effort, Pepper and a SoftBank publicity team came to the London offices of the Financial Times for an introduction and visit. This video shows one reporter's attempt to understand Pepper's capabilities and interactive abilities. 

 

People in the FT offices were definitely attracted, amused and happy with the initial experience of being introduced to Pepper. They laughed at Peppers failures and patted its head to make it feel better. But Pepper failed in every way to (1) be a companion, (2) recognize emotional cues, (3) be able to converse reliably and intelligently, and (4) provide any level of service other than first-time entertainment.

MASTERCARD

MasterCard unveiled the first application of their MasterPass digital payment service by a robot. It will be rolled out in Pizza Hut restaurants in Asia on Pepper robot order-takers beginning in Q4 2016. To accentuate the hook-up, MasterCard created this video showing what they hope will be a typical interaction involved in Pepper taking a customer's order.

 

Tobias Puehse, vice president, innovation management, Digital Payments & Labs at MasterCard, said of the venture with SoftBank and Pepper bots: “The app’s goal is to provide consumers with more memorable and personalized shopping experience beyond today’s self-serve machines and kiosks, by combining Pepper’s intelligence with a secure digital payment experience via MasterPass.”

One might ask what happens in a noisy imperfect acoustic environment? What does conversing with Pepper really add to a conveniently placed kiosk or tablet? How are Pepper's emotional capabilities being used in this simple order-taking interaction? What happens if a customer strays from the dialogue the robot expects?

BOTTOM LINE

There's no doubt that Pepper is an impressive engineering feat and that it is an advertising draw. However the emotion recognition aspects of Pepper didn't appear to be important in both videos even though that is supposed to be Pepper's strength. The entertainment value seemed to be what attracted the crowds. This temporary phenomena isn't likely to persevere over time. In fact, this was shown to be true in China where restaurants began using rudimentary robots as mobile servers and busbots. In the last few months, however, there have been reports of those robots being retired because their entertainment value wore off and their inflexibility as real servers became evident.

The marketing around Pepper may have created expectations that can't be met with this iteration of the robot. A comparison can be made here to Jibo and the problems it is having meeting deadlines and expectations. Jibo has extended the delivery date - once again - to October, 2016 for crowdfunded orders and early next year for the others. 

Read more

]]> Source: Getty Images

Source: Getty Images

Pepper is a child-height human-shaped robot described as having been designed to be a genuine companion that perceives and acts upon a range of human emotions.

SoftBank, the Japanese telecom giant, acquired Aldebaran Robotics and commissioned the development of Pepper. Subsequently SoftBank joint ventured with Alibaba and Foxconn to form a development, production and marketing entity for the robots. There has been much fanfare about Pepper, particularly about its ability to use its body movement and tone of voice to communicate in a way designed to feel natural and intuitive.

The number of Peppers sold to date is newsworthy. As of today, there are likely close to 10,000 Peppers out in the world. Online sales have been 1,000 units each month for the last seven months with additional sales to businesses such as Nestle for their coffee shops and SoftBank for their telecom stores.

Source: Nestle Japan/YouTube

Source: Nestle Japan/YouTube

At around $1,600 per robot, 10,000 robots equates to $16 million in sales but Peppers are sold on a subscription contract that includes a network data plan and equipment insurance. This costs $360 per month and, over 36 months, brings the total cost of ownership to over $14,000. Consequently many are asking what Peppers are being used for, how they are being perceived, and whether they are useful? Essentially, how is Pepper doing? Does it offer value for money spent?

Two recent videos provide a window into Pepper’s state of development.

FINANCIAL TIMES

In a promotional effort, Pepper and a SoftBank publicity team came to the London offices of the Financial Times for an introduction and visit. This video shows one reporter’s attempt to understand Pepper’s capabilities and interactive abilities.

People in the FT offices were definitely attracted, amused and happy with the initial experience of being introduced to Pepper. They laughed at Peppers failures and patted its head to make it feel better. But, Pepper failed in every way to (1) be a companion, (2) recognize emotional cues, (3) be able to converse reliably and intelligently, and (4) provide any level of service other than first-time entertainment.

MASTERCARD

MasterCard unveiled the first application of their MasterPass digital payment service by a robot. It will be rolled out in Pizza Hut restaurants in Asia on Pepper robot order-takers beginning in Q4 2016. To accentuate the hook-up, MasterCard created this video showing what they hope will be a typical interaction involved in Pepper taking a customer’s order.

Tobias Puehse, vice president, innovation management, Digital Payments & Labs at MasterCard, said of the venture with SoftBank and Pepper bots:

“The app’s goal is to provide consumers with more memorable and personalized shopping experience beyond today’s self-serve machines and kiosks, by combining Pepper’s intelligence with a secure digital payment experience via MasterPass.”

One might ask what happens in a noisy, imperfect, acoustic environment? What does conversing with Pepper really add to a conveniently placed kiosk or tablet? How are Pepper’s emotional capabilities being used in this simple order-taking interaction? What happens if a customer strays from the dialogue the robot expects?

BOTTOM LINE

There’s no doubt that Pepper is an impressive engineering feat and that it is an advertising draw. However the emotion recognition aspects of Pepper didn’t appear to be important in both videos even though that is supposed to be Pepper’s strength. The entertainment value seemed to be what attracted the crowds. This temporary phenomena isn’t likely to persevere over time. In fact, this was shown to be true in China where restaurants began using rudimentary robots as mobile servers and busbots. In the last few months, however, there have been reports of those robots being retired because their entertainment value wore off and their inflexibility as real servers became evident.

The marketing around Pepper may have created expectations that can’t be met with this iteration of the robot. A comparison can be made here to Jibo and the problems it is having meeting deadlines and expectations. Jibo has extended the delivery date – once again – to October 2016 for crowdfunded orders, and early next year for the others.

The connection of Pepper to a telecom provider and the sales it brings in the form of 2 and 3 year data service contracts, can be big business to that provider: SoftBank is the exclusive provider of those data services in Japan. An example of the value of that business can be seen by a surge in share price of Taiwan telecom company Asia Pacific Telecom on news that the company will begin selling Pepper robots in Taiwan.

]]> Foxconn shopping for robot manufacturer to keep pace with brisk Pepper sales https://robohub.org/foxconn-shopping-for-robot-manufacturer-to-keep-pace-with-brisk-pepper-sales/ Tue, 05 Jan 2016 21:13:00 +0000 http://robohub.org/foxconn-shopping-for-robot-manufacturer-to-keep-pace-with-brisk-pepper-sales/

The China Post, in an article about the pace of sales for the SoftBank Pepper robot said that Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision (AKA Foxconn) had sent a team of 30 to survey the US market for future acquisitions of robot production firms.

Another 1,000 of the $1,600 Pepper robots sold in Japan on December 27th in just one minute online - 7,000 in the last 7 months. The next sale date is January 28th. Foxconn is currently producing 10 Pepper robots per hour at factories in Yantai, Shandong Province, China and is working to improve efficiency and raise production to 15 per hour.

The Pepper app store for add-on applications offers a range of more than 200 free and pay-for apps. These apps range from quiz games, English picture books, hairstyle and clothing chat games, timers, dance instruction, lie detection, brain games, exercise trainers, animal sounds, food apps like beef bowl and noodle shop locators, piano playing, baseball talking, English for kids and many more.

Pepper, created initially by France-based Aldebaran to act as a "social companion for humans," is advertised by SoftBank as not only being able to read human emotions, but also to respond to emotional cues such as laughing or frowning. 

Softbank recently upgraded Pepper to be able to memorize and store data on human responses by using cloud-based artificial intelligence applications developed by the company's subsidiary, Cocoro SB.

The newsworthy part of The China Post story was Hon Hai Precision's 30-person trip to the U.S. to explore purchasing companies that can help Foxconn increase Pepper production of this very complex robot. Once sales expand from Japan to China and then the rest of the world, production will need to keep pace, hence the concern and exploratory shopping trip. The joint venture between Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank has provided hundreds of millions of dollars for production ramp-up costs which are likely to include money for capital expenditures such as robots and other automation devices - and acquisitions of companies that make those devices.

Read more

]]>

In an article about the pace of sales for the SoftBank Pepper robot, the China Post reported that Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision (AKA Foxconn) has sent a team of 30 to survey the US market for future acquisitions of robot production firms.

On December 27th in Japan, another 1,000 of the $1,600 Pepper robots were sold online in just one minute  — this makes 7,000 sales in the past 7 months. The next sale date is January 28th. Foxconn is currently producing 10 Pepper robots per hour at factories in Yantai (Shandong Province, China) and is working to improve efficiency and raise production to 15 per hour.

Pepper-apps
The Pepper app store for add-on applications offers a range of more than 200 free and paid apps. These apps range from quiz games, English picture books, hairstyle and clothing chat games, timers, dance instruction, lie detection, brain games, exercise trainers, animal sounds, food apps like beef bowl and noodle shop locators, piano playing, baseball talking, English for kids and many more.

Pepper, created initially by France-based Aldebaran to act as a “social companion for humans,” is advertised by SoftBank as not only being able to read human emotions, but also to respond to emotional cues such as laughing or frowning.

Softbank recently upgraded Pepper to be able to memorize and store data on human responses by using cloud-based artificial intelligence applications developed by the company’s subsidiary, Cocoro SB.

The newsworthy part of The China Post story was Hon Hai Precision’s 30-person US delegation to explore purchasing companies that can help Foxconn increase its production of this very complex robot. Once sales expand from Japan to China (and then the rest of the world), production will need to keep pace; hence the concern and exploratory shopping trip. The joint venture between Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank has provided hundreds of millions of dollars for production ramp-up costs, which are likely to include money for capital expenditures such as robots and other automation devices, as well as for acquisitions of companies that make those devices.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

]]> Foxconn and Alibaba invest in SoftBank Robotics as Pepper goes on sale in Japan https://robohub.org/foxconn-and-alibaba-invest-in-softbank-robotics-as-pepper-goes-on-sale-in-japan/ Fri, 19 Jun 2015 19:10:00 +0000 http://robohub.org/foxconn-and-alibaba-invest-in-softbank-robotics-as-pepper-goes-on-sale-in-japan/

In a strategic move sure to have long-term ramnifications, Foxconn and Alibaba each invested $118 million for a combined 40% share of the new SoftBank Robotic Holdings Group, an entity which holds Aldebaran, Pepper and the Pepper SDK software group.

Starting June 20, Pepper robots will go on sale to businesses and consumers in Japan. For $1,600 plus a monthly Internet connection fee of $120 and a monthly maintenance contract of $80, you too can have a Pepper and access to over 200 apps to help make it useful.

According to Tim Hornyak of IDG News Service:

Pepper has rudimentary hand function and can grasp light objects. In a recent demo, the robot was handing out packets of tissues, grabbing them from containers attached to its waist and proffering them to people nearby.

That's actually something done by countless human workers in Japan. Karaoke parlors and other establishments trying to grab commuters' attention print ads on tissue packets and pay people to hand them out at subway stations.

Years ago I talked with Joe Engelberger, considered to be the founder of American robotics, about his thesis that he could build a robot to assist seniors for $750K. Bottom line: he didn't want money from investors or VC funds; he wanted money from deep-pocket players who were in the business. He wanted Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, GE and Medtronic -- companies that already had penetrated the marketing chain and the manufacturing of healthcare devices AND that had deep-pockets for the long haul of bringing the product to market and then supporting it and growing the product line.

In a move which mimics Engelberger's sentiment, SoftBank just sold 40% of its SoftBank Robotics Holding Group (SRH) to Foxconn and Alibaba (20% to each) in return for $118 million from each. SRH is the entity containing SoftBank’s robotic assets: Aldebaran, Pepper and the Pepper SDK software effort. It is also possible that SoftBank’s recent investment in Fetch Robotics might be included in SRH.

Foxconn is already ramping up to do the manufacturing for the Pepper robot. SoftBank earlier announced that Nestle purchased 1,000 Peppers for their Japanese stores and that SoftBank’s retail stores were also getting 1,000. Once Pepper expands beyond Japan, the next most likely target is China — and Alibaba is the biggest name in marketing in China.

Alibaba invented Singles Day, a day like Mother’s Day but for people who are single -- a big group in China. It turned out to be a very successful marketing ploy that caught on with consumers. Proving the power of Alibaba's marketing might, last November 11th, on Singles Day, ECOVACS sold over 70,000 robotic vacuum cleaners online exclusively through Alibaba!

The $236 million in investment funds are certainly enough to scale up manufacturing, software and marketing if not for this year’s Singles Day, certainly for 2016.

This effort by SoftBank and its new partners into consumer robotics is massive in forethought and a welcome confirmation that social robots will be a big thing in the near future.

Read more

]]>

In a strategic move sure to have long-term ramifications, Foxconn and Alibaba each invested $118 million for a combined 40% share of the new SoftBank Robotic Holdings Group, an entity which holds Aldebaran, Pepper and the Pepper SDK software group. Starting June 20, Pepper robots will go on sale to businesses and consumers in Japan. 

For $1,600 plus a monthly Internet connection fee of $120 and a monthly maintenance contract of $80, you too can have a Pepper and access to over 200 apps to help make it useful.

Pepper-handing-out-tissue

According to Tim Hornyak of IDG News Service:

Pepper has rudimentary hand function and can grasp light objects. In a recent demo, the robot was handing out packets of tissues, grabbing them from containers attached to its waist and proffering them to people nearby.

That’s actually something done by countless human workers in Japan. Karaoke parlors and other establishments trying to grab commuters’ attention print ads on tissue packets and pay people to hand them out at subway stations.

Years ago I talked with Joe Engelberger, considered to be the founder of American robotics, about his thesis that he could build a robot to assist seniors for $750K. Bottom line: he didn’t want money from investors or VC funds; he wanted money from deep-pocket players who were in the business. He wanted Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, GE and Medtronic — companies that already had penetrated the marketing chain and the manufacturing of healthcare devices AND that had deep-pockets for the long haul of bringing the product to market and then supporting it and growing the product line.

In a move that mimics Engelberger’s sentiment, SoftBank just sold 40% of its SoftBank Robotics Holding Group (SRH) to Foxconn and Alibaba (20% to each) in return for $118 million from each. SRH is the entity containing SoftBank’s robotic assets: Aldebaran, Pepper and the Pepper SDK software effort. It is also possible that SoftBank’s recent investment in Fetch Robotics might be included in SRH.

Foxconn is already ramping up to do the manufacturing for the Pepper robot. SoftBank earlier announced that Nestle purchased 1,000 Peppers for their Japanese stores and that SoftBank’s retail stores were also getting 1,000. Once Pepper expands beyond Japan, the next most likely target is China — and Alibaba is the biggest name in marketing in China.

Alibaba invented Singles Day, a day like Mother’s Day but for people who are single — a big group in China. It turned out to be a very successful marketing ploy that caught on with consumers. Proving the power of Alibaba’s marketing might, last November 11th, on Singles Day, ECOVACS sold over 70,000 robotic vacuum cleaners online exclusively through Alibaba!

The $236 million in investment funds are certainly enough to scale up manufacturing, software and marketing if not for this year’s Singles Day, then certainly for 2016.

This effort by SoftBank and its new partners into consumer robotics is massive in forethought and a welcome confirmation that social robots will be a big thing in the near future.

]]> Forget Google and unicorns, Asian dragons are going to dominate robotics https://robohub.org/forget-google-and-unicorns-asian-dragons-are-going-to-dominate-robotics/ Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:55:19 +0000 http://robohub.org/forget-google-and-unicorns-asian-dragons-are-going-to-dominate-robotics/

Yesterday SoftBank, FoxConn and Alibaba cemented a strong robotics initiative. Having acquired a majority stake in Aldebaran in 2012 (just after the Amazon acquisition of Kiva), SoftBank’s interest in robots has been cause for confusion. Do they want an ‘emotional’ humanoid robot or is their interest in Aldebaran a pathway towards a more practical robot?

Well, it looks like SoftBank is interested in everything robotic, as they lead the $20 million A round in logistics company Fetch Robotics and announce a joint robotics production partnership with Alibaba and FoxConn. The new SoftBank Robotics Holdings Corp. (SBRH) is valued at $590 million, with Alibaba and FoxConn paying $118 million each for 20% stakes in SBRH.

SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn will “build a structure to bring Pepper and other robotics businesses to global markets, and cooperate with the aim of spreading and developing the robotics industry on a worldwide scale.” said the SoftBank release. And Pepper, will finally go on sale to customers on June 20 after delays from projected availability in early 2015. Pepper will cost 198,000 yen (approx $1610) plus a monthly service fee.

Pepper has already appeared in SoftBank and Nestle stores in Japan. This next step could see Pepper in your home, although SoftBank believes that the primary initial customers will be institutional. With Japan’s aging population serving as an inspiration point, SoftBank have been exploring applications for Pepper in nursing homes, for example, conversing with patients with dementia.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank, said, “Since foundation, we have followed our corporate philosophy of ‘Information Revolution – Happiness for everyone.’ I am very excited that we will partner with Alibaba and Foxconn, and challenge to go global with our robotics business, including Pepper, as a first step to realize our vision. To bring more smiles to people around the world, we will aim to be the No.1 robotics company.”

Pepper is just the first step. Remember Terry Gou’s famous “1 million robots in FoxConn factories by 2014” statement? When Gou made the plan in 2011, finding 1 million factory robots would have meant doubling the number of industrial robots in the world. With the world coming out of an economic slump, Gou’s plan was too ambitious at the time. However, industrial robotics has been growing rapidly ever since, and nowhere faster than in China. At the same time, the cost of robotics systems is lowering and the range of applications for industrial and now service and logistics robots is increasing.

Terry Gou, Founder and CEO of Foxconn Technology Group, said, “Foxconn is pleased to be partnering with SoftBank and Alibaba as part of our effort to drive the advancement of robotics engineering. This is a strategic area of focus for our company as we continue to advance our capabilities in intelligent manufacturing and realize our Industry 4.0 vision.” He added, “As a leading global technology company, Foxconn is committed to investing in innovation that enables us to deliver cutting-edge solutions to our customers and that supports our goal of leveraging technology to bring greater convenience to the lives of consumers around the world.”

It’s clear that Gou realized that the world couldn’t build robots fast enough to meet his demand in 2011 and that the demand was only going to increase. FoxConn, Alibaba and SoftBank are the emerging dragons of robotics. Unicorns swept the tech world by storm last year after Aileen Lee, Cowboy Ventures, wrote a data-rich analysis of fast growth startups with mega valuations. Since then, some have looked a little further and found ‘dragons’ to be more rewarding. By some accounts a dragon company is one that returns 100% of fund value to a fund – or by some other accounts – it’s a company with a real $1B, and not just a $1B valuation.

Amazon’s acquisition of Kiva Systems for $775m in 2012 was the first shot in a campaign that is just ramping up. Google’s purchase of eight robotics and AI companies in 2013 left many people excited, but it was the forays into robotics by Facebook, Uber and other more stealthy companies that got me excited. Unicorn or Dragon – there are a lot of young companies with bucket loads of cash and a very loose understanding of what their grown up status is. If they stay true to their startup selves, their sole mission is to grow like crazy – see Paul Graham’s seminal 2012 piece “Startup = Growth” . Investing in robotics may not be a strategy so much as a byproduct.

Sadly, cementing this initiative may be the final sinking of Aldebaran, the visionary robotics company we used to know. All the other robots, including NAO, have been shelved in favor of Pepper, and SoftBank has taken over all the software development, leading to big staff cuts at Aldebaran. Rude Baguette quoted an anonymous Aldebaran executive as saying; “If we were paranoid, we’d say that FoxConn stole the hardware, SoftBank stole the software, and Aldebaran was sucked dry.”

While the globalization of robotics is good in the short term, I hope that SoftBank’s initiatives lead to more innovation in robotics and robotics businesses. Globalization will drive growth, but only up to a point. It’s what Peter Thiel describes as “1 to n”, where “n” is always finite. In his book, Zero to One, Thiel describes the importance of the new opportunity.


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See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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