The second quarter of the year has been very positive for iRobot products, especially for premium domestic robots, that recorded a significant growth. Colin Angle, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, personally commented the results with these words: «Consistent with our business update last month, iRobot delivered a stronger-than-expected second-quarter performance as demand strengthened meaningfully during the quarter. Our top-line results were highlighted by 43% growth in our premium robots. Quarterly revenue in each major geographic region surpassed our initial targets entering the quarter, led by 13% growth in the U.S. and 43% expansion in Japan. Our return to operating profitability reflected the combination of higher revenue, notable improvement in our gross margin and disciplined expense management.»
According to Colin Angle, the good trends has been positively influenced by iRobot strategy in the proposals of innovative and performant products.
«We are making tangible progress – he said – in our strategy to differentiate our robots through their ability to deliver an exceptional cleaning experience as our product mix continued to shift toward our premium robots. Maintaining a clean home has taken on greater prominence during this pandemic. Consumers are increasingly realizing that our floor cleaning robots, particularly our premium products such as the Roomba i7 Series and s9 Series, along with the Braava jet m6, possess the cleaning efficacy, thoughtful intelligence and home understanding to become trusted cleaning companions. Related to this, our community of connected customers grew 13% sequentially from the end of March to approximately 6.9 million at the end of Q2.»
In this period iRobot revenue reached 279.9 million dollar, with an increase of 8% from 260.2 million in the second quarter of 2019. The growth primarily reflected a 43% increase in premium robot (list price of 500 dollar or higher) revenue. Revenue for the first half of 2020 was 472.4 million dollar versus 497.8 million in the first half of 2019.
The second-quarter 2020 revenue performance was highlighted by 13% growth in the U.S. and 43% in Japan over the prior year period, which more than offset a 14% decline in EMEA.
