Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank is teaming up with Apple manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group in a global push to manufacture and sell robots for the home and workplace.

Foxconn and Alibaba are each investing ¥14.5 billion (US$118 million) in SoftBank Robotics Holdings (SRH), for a stake of about 20 percent each of the company, with SoftBank holding the remaining 60 percent.

SRH is a holding company for SoftBank’s robotics business, which will begin sales of the carrier’s Pepper communications robot for Japanese consumers on Saturday. It plans to first sell 1,000 units, priced at ¥198,000 with a monthly cloud connection fee of ¥14,800 and monthly insurance of ¥9,800. The hardware price is very low for a robot as sophisticated as Pepper.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here