iRobot Corp (NASDAQ:IRBT)

Service automation is growing theme in our lives, following industrial automation in the 20th century and agric automation in 19th.
Market for domestic robot cleaners is growing fast.
iRBT have 90% share
iRBT has excellent revenue (16%) and EPS (50%) growth in recent year and recent quarters. High RoE, increasing margins, $145m cash, no debt, positive free cash flow.
Now trading at less than 18 times earnings.

The stock will outperform the market as long as the company keeps a long term goal of innovating.
Usage of robots will only increase because of safety and cost.

Continues to outperform on the consumer side.

This one's crushed the market by over 128 points in the past five years. Hoping for more of the same over the next five!

Taking a chance that they are developing a gold mining robot the most profitable idea yet for the robotics industry

Earnings continuously impress.

I know a really smart person that works there.

Extremely poor management. Minimal actual product development. Unwillingness to keep employees happy.

It was announced, yesterday, that IRBT is being added to the S & P small cap 600 index. This will increase demand for this financially sound company's stock.

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In 1990, Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Colin Angle and Helen Greiner started iRobot with MIT professor Rodney Brooks. In its early days, it developed robots used by NASA. From that base, it expanded to other government clients, mostly inside the Department of Defense (DOD). Its robots did everything from explore space to searching for survivors in the World Trade Center rubble following 9-11.

In 2002, something fascinating happened: iRobot entered the consumer market with its Roomba vacuum robot. In the following years, it expanded its consumer presence with other labor-saving products: Scooba for floor-cleaning, Verro for pool cleaning and Looj for gutter cleaning. These products are now sold through its Home Robots Division. In the U.S., iRobot sells via its website (often pressure testing new products via the website before expanding distribution to other channels) and retail partners. Internationally, country-based distributors handle sales to retailers; iRobot works in 40 countries with an entry into China planned for 2012. The robots are selling in big numbers too – 6 million in the last eight years. It’s an impressive run, but with nearly 200 million households in the United States alone, there’s plenty of room for growth.

Along the way, the company enhanced its military, search and industrial robots. Those robots have been used by troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as used by Japan’s nuclear industry to examining reactor damage in the aftermath of March’s earthquakes and tsunamis. Current products include the SUGV (Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle), PackBot (search and bomb-removal), Warrior (payload hauler) and Seaglider (maritime search). Those products are sold through the Government and Industrial (G&I) Robots Division; in the last eight years, the company has sold 3,500 G&I robots, mostly to the U.S. government.

The company’s development in this particular way – whether intentional or accidental, or probably a mixture of planning and luck -- allowed for two critical competitive advantages:

First, through DOD and other government contracts, it augmented its own internal research and development (R&D) budget with big dollars from Uncle Sam. Those contracts grew the company, and its robotics knowledge and abilities much faster than they would have without those additional resources.

Second, two very different divisions now make up the company. This organization likely thwarts would-be acquirers that might be attracted by the company’s high-growth, no debt and pile of cash -- $124 million at the end of 2010. An industrial or government contracting firm doesn’t want the Home business; and a specialty retailer or consumer products company certainly doesn’t want the G&I division.

Additionally, iRobot focuses solely on robot design and marketing. It leaves manufacturing to partners. And, it has been utilizing a network of third-party developers to create new robotic capabilities in its G&I products. It thus keeps human capital costs down, while still tapping into the thinking and capabilities of very smart robotic engineers.

future prospects look bad

The robotics market will only continue to grow. Partnering with the military will pay huge dividends going forward, and functional robotic assistants will become more advanced with time. No one has a better position to capitalize on this trend.

Leadership in robotics, proven management

Robots are the future.

Lots and Lots of Government Money and its better to have a robot shot at then a soldier.

The robots are coming, the robots are coming!

The fool says so.

With the growing demand for innovative technologies in the current global market, IRBT is rising to the occasion. The future as we all know it is robotic technology as we have seen with the invention of the robotic prosthetic limb, robotics in the workplace and soon, medicines. Investing in this security is investing in the future.

wanna check out that suspect package?? Robots are the way and these guys know the market. The world isn't getting any more fun.