Market Overview

Service robots can be categorized as household or business use according to their applications.
Household service robots aim to support people’s lives at home by helping with cleaning, education, and entertainment. Business-use robots offer specialized services and are used for various applications, including cleaning, delivery, service, security, long-term care, and entertainment. These robots contribute to a wide range of industries and commercial sectors, including commercial facilities, medical and welfare institutions, logistics, agriculture, and construction.

Based on the total shipment volume of nine applications from manufacturers, the estimated size of the global service robot market was 20,707,100 units in 2024. Service robots have prevailed, because of the following reasons: labor shortages and rising wages in the service industry worldwide; improved robot performance in a wide range of fields stemming from advanced generative AI; and a higher return on investment (ROI) caused by increased deployment.

Noteworthy Topics

Sticking to Repetitive R&D and Demonstrations on a Mid-and Long-Term View Are Important, Rather than Persisting in Short-Term ROI

In Japan, the deployment of service robots is steadily increasing for applications with high ROI. For example, implementing a food serving and clearing robot at a restaurant can reduce costs by 300,000 yen per month compared to hiring an employee, though deployment conditions differ by company. 
However, some applications and fields cannot reach a stage where full implementation is possible, despite demonstrations and tests. This is often seen with delivery robots, including those for last-mile delivery, security robots, and cooking-related robots.
These areas' failure to reach full deployment is due to the difficulty of immediately demonstrating ROI, such as increased productivity and labor savings, after robot deployment compared to before deployment. While there may be other reasons, ROI is the most important factor in most cases.    

While some applications have experienced significant growth in deployment in the United States and China, this has not been the case in Japan.

Even though ROI effects cannot be expected, the United States and China have set the retention rate (the ability to continue use) and the improvement contribution rate (number of improvements detected) as their key performance indicators (KPI). Information obtained from these KPIs will be used for further research and development (R&D) efforts for mass production and full deployment, anticipating a potential decrease in the global working population.

Future Outlook

Initially, service robots were deployed as a measure against infection during the pandemic. Even after economic activities resumed and foot traffic returned after the end of the pandemic, they continued to be used worldwide for various applications because of the delayed resumption of labor in service businesses. The deployment of service robots is expected to steadily increase in 2025 and beyond, as people become more accepting of their presence.
Additionally, the evolution of generative AI has improved image recognition, which successfully reduced contact risk, while enhancing the accuracy of speech recognition and inference performance, and refining human interaction. Judgment by AI embedded in software has improved the operational efficiency when multiple numbers of service robots are used simultaneously.

These performance improvements are expected to continue in the medium- to long-term. Consequently, the potential benefits that users can reap from deployment will increase over time. According to the manufacturers' shipment volume estimates, the global service robot market size (across nine applications) is expected to reach 30.26 million units.

Research Outline