Locus Robotics, a developer of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for fulfillment warehouses, announced that its robots picked 331 million units, during the 2023 holiday season, on behalf of its retail and third-party logistics partners. The robots picked nearly 7 million average daily units during peak shopping season.
The Wilmington, Mass.-based company saw a 107% increase in average daily unit picks over the same period in 2022. Overall, Locus Robotics saw a 66% increase in picks during the entire season.
“We are thrilled to have delivered another record-breaking peak shopping season for our customers. The over 66% increase in units picked compared to last year shows the growing demand for warehouse automation and the proven scalability of the Locus solution,” Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics, said in a release. “As online shopping continues to accelerate, our intelligent robots enable customers to keep pace while also optimizing productivity.”
Locus ramps up picking operations
LocusBots have now picked over 2.5 billion units worldwide, with the last 100 million picks taking just 27 days. This was much faster than the company’s first 100 million picks, which took over 1,500 days.
The company hit two billion picks in August 2023, just 11 months after reaching its first billion picks. Locus has grown a lot in 2023. In July, it broke ground for its new global headquarters in Wilmington, Mass. It expanded its partnership with DHL to deploy 5,000 more robots in May. And in January, it announced a partnership with Berkshire Grey to maximize cross-platform robotic automation.
Holiday shopping trends according to Locus
According to Adobe Analytics data, from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, consumers spent more than $38 billion in total online global sales. Cyber Monday was the largest online shopping day in history, with a total of $12.4 billion in sales. This increase in online sales is good news for Locus, whose robots are helpful in order fulfillment applications.
Locus provided some insights into holiday shopping trends this year. The company first noted that holiday shopping began earlier this year. The holiday shopping period started several weeks earlier, with some retailers starting sales events as early as late September.
The company also said that online shopping is here to stay. The ease and convenience of online ordering has not only driven growth in retail sectors but also in other business channels like B2B and industrial. Amongst all of this shopping, labor shortages are still a concern for brick-and-mortar retailers, warehouses, and transportation.
Finally, Locus says that shopping via mobile apps has become more popular. This year, 54% of all orders were made using a mobile app, a 10.4% increase from 2022. If these trends continue, Locus will be primed for another record year in 2024.
