iRobot sweeps up strong Roomba sales — it could be Big Tech's partner in grime (fighting)
Not the Will Smith movie... iRobot is a rare publicly-traded, consumer-facing robot company. It's famous for birthing the Roomba (aka, the world's 1st self-driving vacuum). And it just rolled its way across the floor to give us a casual update:
- "Substantially stronger than expected": iRobot's quarterly sales. They're now expected tp be around $265M, up from the previous forecast of less than $193M.
- "True partners": In grime-fighting. People are staying home more, so floors are getting dirtier. Throw in a global pandemic, and you've got a cleaning-obsessed market.
Time is more valuable than money... That's the philosophical conclusion we extrapolated from Roomba sales. The premium $900 Roomba Series is selling better than the $250 basic version. People are working from home, caring for kids, and cooking 10 meals a day — that's a reason to splurge on the most efficient automated vacuum option. The one task you can delegate.
Hot takeaway — iRobot should get itself acquired... Its $2.3B market value is 1/4 of a Lyft. While the stock is up 70% for the year, it's still down 35% from its all-time iRobotic high. iRobot's business revolves around a single, popular product line that could be easily tossed into a corporate shopping cart. An Amazon-owned iRobot could throw in some Alexa to entertain you while it cleans.