Transport Robots Led 2025 Shipments: Where to Start

Why did transport robots lead 2025 shipments?

Transport and logistics was the top application for professional service robots in 2025. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), transport and logistics robots made up 47% of professional service robot units that year. The IFR headline rounds the count to 117,000 units, while the release body gives 117,500, up 21%.

Total professional service robot shipments rose 24% to almost 250,000 units in 2025. That growth matters for a first-time buyer, because nearly half of those units were moving goods rather than cleaning floors or serving food.

For a facility choosing its first robot, the signal is practical. Transport work tends to repeat on fixed routes and can be counted in moves per shift. Those traits make a first project easier to scope than a complex arm cell.

What the IFR figure counts, and what it does not

IFR classes mobile robots that carry goods or cargo as transport, along with inventory counting, refilling and other logistics functions. Palletizing and pick-and-place robots are counted as industrial robots instead. IFR treats autonomous mobile robots as service robots, so a warehouse AMR belongs in this count while a palletizing arm does not.

The figures also measure shipments, not the number of robots working in facilities today. The 2026 data comes from a sample of 238 suppliers, IFR does not project it to represent the whole industry, and IFR cautions against comparing figures across reports because sample composition changes. Treat the 47% share as a strong directional signal, not a census of installed fleets.

Why does transport lead the service robot mix?

IFR says these robots are primarily used for transportation and for automating material flows and delivery processes. In 2024, transport and logistics already led with 102,900 units sold, and indoor transport without public traffic was the most important class in that segment.

The business model is shifting as well. IFR says traditional sales remain the main monetization channel, but robot as a service models keep growing, and in the US RaaS is already the dominant model. The IFR 2025 report put the RaaS fleet at more than 24,500 units in 2024, up 31%.

A recurring-payment structure suits transport because the value accrues across many shifts. The contract terms, though, decide what a facility actually pays and what happens when a unit is down.

Where do adoption barriers still sit?

IFR lists safety standards, high training and maintenance costs, and a weak business case, particularly in industrial settings, as continuing limits on adoption. Each one tends to surface early in a transport project, often as a route nobody mapped or a service plan nobody priced.

Safety is the first screen. A mobile robot that shares aisles, docks or elevators with people needs defined speed zones, stop behavior and sign-off before go-live. Training is the second, since the staff who load carts and call the robot will work alongside it every day.

How should a facility evaluate one transport use case?

A short evaluation keeps the first project honest. Five steps cover most of the ground for an internal delivery or cart-move job.

• Pick one route with a known move count per shift, such as dock-to-cage cart runs or supply trips between two floors.
• Time the current work for at least a full week, including walking, waiting and handoffs, so the baseline reflects real conditions.
• Confirm the route can be mapped, including doors, elevators, dock plates and any seasonal obstacles that change the path.
• Write safety rules and a go or no-go target before any robot is installed.
• Run a pilot on that single route, then decide whether to widen it based on the timed data.

How does a lease change the first decision?

Service Robot Co. is a full-service commercial robot integrator for US businesses, and we are OEM-neutral. We pick the right robots across manufacturers, then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network, so a facility works with one vendor across the lifecycle.

We lease robots only. Our financing runs on a 3-year lease with one fixed payment quoted after a site assessment. That assessment is where the route, floor, dock and elevator questions get answered on the actual building rather than on a brochure, and robot leasing for business works best when the payment is set after the work is measured.

What should a first transport pilot measure?

Measure what the route really does, not what the brochure promises. Count completed moves, interruptions, staff time spent on handoffs, and how long a stopped robot takes to get back in service.

Those four numbers tell you whether the job fits a robot, and they give a go or no-go decision something firmer than impressions. A pilot that tracks them also makes it easier to compare any two proposals on the same work.

Why not start with a humanoid?

IFR counted about 7,000 full-size humanoids above 140 cm sold in 2025, and says most current applications remain specialized and often require human teleoperation. Automate, citing the IFR survey, recorded roughly 17 transport and logistics service robots for every full-size humanoid.

For a first project, that ratio points toward proven route work. A transport robot with a mapped path and a defined job is far easier to measure than a general-purpose machine still searching for its task.