SoftBank's cute humanoid robot Pepper may soon be gone. According to Reuters, Japan's conglomerate has stopped production of the robot and is cutting jobs in robotics-related industries in many countries. According to Reuters, Pepper was not in high demand and SoftBank has only produced 27,000 Foxconn-made Pepper units.Nikkei also reported that Pepper's production was stopped due to low demand. However, the SoftBank representative it spoke to denied that the company is actually killing the robot. The spokesperson stated that production would resume if demand improves.Pepper was sold in less than a minute in Japan when it was first released in 2015. However, it was only 1,000 units that were produced for the consumer launch. Pepper is a social robot that recognizes faces and basic emotions. It can also interact with people. SoftBank leased most of its units to corporate clients. The company also placed Pepper in its Japanese mobile phone shops.Pepper is a bit expensive for small developers and businesses, with a cost of more than $1,600. According to Reuters, sales of Pepper suffered because it was unreliable and had limited functionality. SoftBank was unable to add more features to Pepper because of cultural clashes between its Japanese management and its French business responsible for robotics projects.SoftBank's focus shifted to Whiz the cleaning robot, and Pepper was left behind. According to Reuters, the company will cut roughly half of its 330 French staff positions in September. Half of its sales staff positions in the US, Britain and the US had been eliminated.
