Cleaning Hygiene Today Cleaning Hygiene Magazine
SoftBank Robotics Group Corp. has announced that, as of the end of June 2020, it recorded global cumulative sales of more than 10,000 units of ‘Whiz,’ the AI-enabled vacuum-cleaning robot developed and provided by SoftBank Robotics Corp.
Following the launch of the humanoid robot ‘Pepper,’ SBRG announced Whiz as its second robot in November 2018, and it began providing Whiz commercially from May 2019 in Japan. Whiz was later launched in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and the United States, and is now available in five countries and regions. SBRG plans to expand Whiz sales to other countries and regions in the future. In response to the spread of Covid-19, in June 2020, SBRG verified that the virus can be reduced by using Whiz to clean floors, and it also began offering “Disinfection Solution (β version),” an agent combined with Whiz, to disinfect walls, door knobs and other points inside buildings.
Against the backdrop of heightened worldwide interest in cleanliness at facilities and demands to shift cleaning tasks from manual labor to robots, Whiz has seen increased sales, bringing its cumulative unit sales to 10,000 as of the end of June 2020. With availability in five countries and regions, Whiz has cleaned floorspaces equivalent to over 335,000 km, or approximately 8.5 laps around the world. Whiz has also captured a 55 per cent market share of the autonomous professional cleaning robot market, and now ranks No. 1 globally for cumulative sales of autonomous professional cleaning robots. SBRG expects to see even more worldwide demand for autonomous professional cleaning robots in the future.
SBRG will respond to the increased interest around the world to enhance cleanliness at facilities and the cleaning industry’s needs for greater sophistication required for the ‘New Normal’ era. In parallel, SBRG aims to help solve issues facing the industry, including a shrinking workforce.
