iRobot Corp (IRBT)

Surprised to see this up so high given the weak outlook

Their technology is world class and the products they have in the pipeline, especially military, are going to propel them to be a likely acquisition target.

I have no idea about outperforming anything. I just think it will be a rising stock. Isn't that how you invest? I suppose the idea is if the S&P 500 outperforms it, you might as well go w/ that.

IRBT is where the future lies. Important industry that's moving beyond home appliances into defense.

When investors recat to declining EPS (an accounting convention number) versus free cash flow (the true value of a company), it gets oversold very quickly. This company is FCF-ing very nicely. Who cares about EPS?

Speculative pick for me: Zero debt. 41m in cash vs. 44m in total liabilities. Robots are the future in one form or another and it can only help that they have government contracts. The Co-Founders are both still involved with the business, too. This is one that i would hold in my portfolio for an extended period of time (years and years).

The future is robotics. This is a stock for the long term investor. Company has lots of cash on hand and many government contracts. And will have many more contracts to fill down the line. Robots save lives in war, crime, and just about anything else.

Huge market potential. They also have a great balance sheet and a previous hit product, Roomba.

I bought their roomba and the gutter cleaner and love them. I want more robots in my life!

Looking at history the one thing we humans consistently do is innovate. As we advance, technology becomes more present in our daily lives. "A robot in every home." A world like that is not far off. Robots will eventually become present in our daily lives just like computers, tv's, and cars. The military is already utilitizing robots: UAV's like the MQ-1 Predator and UGV's like the Gladiator.

It's hard to tell who will be the king in robotics down the line. So why iRobot? iRobot has produced a succesful consumer product: Roomba. They have sold more than 3 million Roomba's to date making it one of the most sucessful consumer robots ever. History tends to repeat itself. Also, they have sold more than 2,400 Packbots (mostly to the military) with a recent deal worth $22 million. A drop in the bucket, but if the military likes what they see they will sign bigger contracts. iRobot operates in the consumer market and the military market. The consumer market is small, but will eventually take off, while the military market was worth $917 million in 2008. This is expected to increase to $1.2 billion in 2009.

The robotics industry is growing. In 2008 the robotics market was worth $17.3 billion. This is estimated to increase to $21.4 billion by 2014. As the market size grows Robotics companies with sucessful products like iRobot will start to throw off lots of cash. iRobot has the balance sheet to get them to that point. They have $54 million cash, zero debt, and $42 million in total liabilities. They have a $162 million in total assets. Although they only have $18 million R&D budget. As for the management, who doesn't like to see MIT graduates running a tech company?

Lastly, iRobot is not easy value. However, using a discount rate of 8% and the curren market cap of $295.8 million, iRobot needs to generate about $24 million in free cash to deserve their $295.8 million cap. They have to grow their net income alot, but in the last 5 years they have averaged a revenue growth of 41%. They will need a breakthrough product or a major contract to get to a net of $24 million a year. But looking at the overall picture and the tremendous potential of this market sector, I'm willing to take the risk. Thumbs up.

One of the major players in Robotics with commercial vacuums and military applications. It has a backlog of military orders for robots that detect and disarm bombs as well as those that actually function as armed drones. They also have paired with others for the development of underwater military robots.

I really love I-robots. I think the baby boomers are going to go for a lot of these products as they retire. There is even one that mows your lawn. A lot cheaper then hiring people or (gulp!) doing it yourself. Roomba's are fun. I think there is a moat here.

Sales will rise with along with the economy. Increased sales will increase profits.

American high tech affordable again?

IRBT fills a need, altho largely unrecognized by the general public. Robotics will dominate the future, once partnered with humans. R.

In the year 2000 many industries will be run by robots. And I will be a millionaire. Although due to inflation a million will only feel like 10 bucks. But seriously, this company is a game changer.

Robotics is the new tech sector. IRBT has ample government contracts to weather the downturn and they ahve had the greatest success of any other robotics company in penetrating the consumer market. Even though consumer sales will be down penetration into new markets I believe will offset that (i.e europe/asia)

I was skepitcal when this one came across, my screener, but the numbers are very solid, so I looked at the more qualitative reasons not to buy this company. Some may say there is an issue with the product, and say they don't have the consumer market. Two reason why this is not a good reason 1. they have the government market which far exceeds the spending of the consumers, and due to domestic prefrence likely to get domestic deals, not to mention the fact that the U.S. Gov't loves handing them free money and 2. The product which they are selling is in the early release stages, it's a very new idea, and thus costs lots of money and only innovators will buy the product, in the next bull run, I'd expect us to see more early adopters picking this product up, and the cost of the product for Irobot to go down as they get better at marketing.

2. Some question management, and when I read they were showing off their new kid (man) John Leahy (CFO) I was very worried, particularly when I read he came from Keane, a company whose upper management destroyed the company. My dad used to work for Keane, so I asked him and he assured my Leahy knew what he was doing and that he didn't have anything to do with Keane's meltdown. Also worth mentioning this man came from Pepsi also, one of the best managed companies in the world. Irobot is getting good management talent. I like it a lot at these levels.

i want an army of little robots to do all the crap i'm too lazy to do myself