The worldwide number of domestic household robots will rise to 31 million between 2016 and 2019. The sales value of robots cleaning floors, mowing lawns, and cleaning swimming pools will grow to about 13 billion US dollars in this period. These forecasts are takes from the 2016 World Robotics Report – Service Robots, published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). In particular, sales of vacuum and floor cleaning robots will rise from 3.6 million units (2015) to around 30 million units within the 2016-2019 forecast period. Vacuum and floor cleaning robots account for 96 percent of domestic robot sales. Robotic mowers and pool cleaning robots rank second and third, respectively. “Robotics in personal and domestic applications has experienced strong global growth with relatively few mass-market products: floor cleaning robots, lawn mowers and edutainment robots are dominating the market – said Joe Gemma, president of the International Federation of Robotics -. But the next generation of robots will have even greater capabilities and will open up new fields of application”.
