Transport Robots at 47 Percent: What IFR's 2025 Data Means

What did IFR count for transport and logistics in 2025?

The International Federation of Robotics ranked transport and logistics first among professional service robot applications for 2025. In World Robotics 2026 Service Robots, published 30 September 2026, IFR counted 117,500 units in that application, about 47% of professional service robot shipments that year. These are global figures from IFR's own survey, so they describe the whole category rather than any single country or facility.

The segment also grew. Transport and logistics rose about 21% from 2024, according to IFR-based coverage. The wider category grew faster: global professional service robot shipments rose 24% to nearly 250,000 units. Transport kept its lead by size even though its growth trailed the category as a whole.

For a facility still moving carts, linen and supplies by hand, the headline is a signal, not a verdict. It shows where robot makers have found the most volume. It does not show whether a robot will clear your doors, your elevators and your staff handoffs.

Why did transport lead the category?

Coverage of the IFR data names three jobs at the center of the segment: transporting goods, automating material flows, and supporting delivery processes. Each one is repetitive, measurable and easy to draw on a route map, which makes it a practical place to start a service robot program.

That repetition is what matters on the floor. A linen cart that makes the same run to the same wing every shift is a different problem from a one-time freight move. Robots tend to perform best where the path, the load and the destination recur.

What the 47% share does not measure

The 47% applies to professional service robots only. It does not describe all robots, and one outlet's wording suggesting 47% of all robots sold misreads the report. Some headlines also round the unit count to 117,000, while the report body gives 117,500.

The figures come from a sample of 238 service robot suppliers. IFR warns against comparing its figures across reports, because the sample composition changes. A rise or dip between editions may reflect who answered the survey as much as what happened on the floor.

IFR-based coverage also notes that the U.S. supplier mix includes alternative business models, with traditional sales still the largest model. That matters to a buyer, because the way a robot reaches your site can differ from the way it was counted.

How do the other top application areas compare?

The same survey ranked hospitality second and professional cleaning third. Within cleaning, floor cleaning was the main application. For operators who run night floors, that third place is a reminder that the floor problem and the transport problem share the same corridors, since carts, linen and supply runs crowd the paths that scrubbers need after close.

The survey also recorded about 7,000 full-size humanoids above 140 cm sold in 2025, a new category in the report. That figure is small beside 117,500 transport units, and humanoids are not where most facility managers will begin.

What does manual hauling really cost a facility?

Hand hauling rarely appears as a line item. It hides in staff walking time, in carts parked in the wrong bay, and in supplies that run short between deliveries. Staff who spend a shift pushing carts are spending hours that were not meant for that job.

Start by logging, not guessing. Record each recurring run for a week: origin, destination, load type, time of day, the doors and elevators used, and who waits at the far end. That log becomes the basis for any vendor conversation, and it shows where a transport robot would spend its hours and where it would sit idle.

Which checks decide whether a transport robot fits?

Four checks settle most fit questions before any robot moves a load. Walk each route with a tape and a clipboard, not from memory.

• Confirm the route has no steps, unsupported thresholds or doors that cannot be automated.
• Check elevator access and whether the robot can call and ride the lift in your building.
• Define the payload, including weight, stacking limits and any cleanliness rules for linen or supplies.
• Plan the handoff at each end, because a robot that arrives with no one to unload it adds delay.

How Service Robot Co. handles the lease decision

Service Robot Co. is a full-service commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We are OEM neutral, so we select robots that fit the route and the floor across manufacturers instead of starting from one catalog. We then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service each unit through a nationwide US engineer network, giving you one partner for the whole lifecycle.

Robots reach our customers through a three-year lease. The site assessment comes first, and the fixed lease payment is quoted after it, so the figure reflects the actual route, doors and service needs rather than a generic estimate. Many sites begin with one leased unit on the route their logs flagged most often.