Service robot sales grew fastest in logistics and hotels

The signal

Sales of professional service robots grew sharply in 2021, an industrial-sector count that the International Federation of Robotics publishes annually and separately from its more familiar industrial-robot installation data. The IFR's own World Robotics 2022 - Service Robots executive summary states that 'worldwide sales of professional service robots grew by 37%' in 2021, with 'more than 121,000 of the units sold' reported to its Statistical Department. Growth was not even across applications: transportation and logistics robots rose '45% more units sold', hospitality robots were 'up 85%', medical robots 'up 23%', and professional cleaning robots grew '31%', making logistics and hospitality the fastest-growing categories the report names.

The evidence

The IFR is an industry body whose own description, retrieved 16 September 2026, states it is 'a unique international association having members from groups, companies and research institutes from around the world', established in 1987, whose Statistical Department 'collects and interprets market relevant data on global robot installations' from a producer survey, not a census. That matters for reading the 37% figure: it is a year-on-year change among responding producers, not a government series, and the report counts 1,010 known service-robot producers while noting many remain in a prototyping or funding stage rather than shipping in volume. The report also distinguishes traditional sales from robots-as-a-service, stating the RaaS fleet 'more than doubled to about 5,200 units (+125%)', a far smaller base than the 121,000 units sold outright, showing purchase still dominates volume even as RaaS grows faster in percentage terms.

Timeframe and confidence

Confidence in the reported 2021 growth rates and unit counts is high for what the survey captured, since figures are attributed to named categories in the federation's own publication. Confidence that these figures capture the full market is lower, because the count depends on which producers responded, and the report flags that young companies often get acquired or fail before their sales appear in an annual count. Reading 37% as total market growth, rather than growth among reporting producers, is an editorial extension the source does not make explicit.

What would change the reading

A later Service Robots edition, showing whether logistics and hospitality kept growing fastest across several years rather than one, would distinguish a durable pattern from a single strong year after pandemic-era demand shifts. A breakdown of how many of the 1,010 known producers actually reported sales, against how many remained in prototyping, would show how complete the survey's coverage was.

Did logistics and hospitality sales keep growing at similar rates after 2021, or was that year unusual?
What share of the 1,010 known producers actually contributed sales data to the 37% figure?
Is the shift toward robots-as-a-service changing who buys robots, and how would that show up in future counts?

A 37% growth figure from an industry body's own survey is real evidence of a fast-moving segment, but it describes reported sales among responding producers in one year, not a certified market total. The category breakdown is the more durable part of the finding.

Source trail

World Robotics 2022 - Service Robots (Executive Summary)ifr.org · Source publication: 2022-01-01 · Retrieved 2026-09-16
States the 37% overall growth figure and the per-application growth rates for logistics, hospitality, medical and cleaning robots.
International Federation of Robotics (homepage)ifr.org · Source publication: not established · Retrieved 2026-09-16
Describes the IFR's founding, membership and survey-based statistical methodology.

Event date: No single event
First source date: 2022-01-01
Source-record publication: Not supplied — draft retained
Preparation: 2026-09-16

Read across the evidence

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