SoftBank Humanoid Robots Land First Job as Nestle Salesmen Selling Coffee Machines in Japan

Nestle is all set to bring on board a thousand humanoid robots to sell its coffee machines at electronic stores across Japan, said the world's biggest food group on Wednesday (29 October).

The move marks tech conglomerate SoftBank Corp's first corporate customer for its chatty androids, reported Reuters.

"We hope this new type of made-in-Japan customer service will take off around the world," said Kohzoh Takaoka, Nestle Japan's President in a statement.

Developed by a French company and manufactured in Taiwan, the humanoid robots are able to express human emotions and are also capable of being taught.

The robots can also serve as a companion or a guide.

Nestle is initially commissioning 20 SoftBank robots, called Pepper, to assist in coffee machine sales in December, followed by several more to work at an estimated 1,000 stores by the end of next year.

It is yet to be confirmed how much Nestle has settled as the wage for Pepper, however, the robots are said to retail at £1,143 ($1,830) confirmed SoftBank.

The robots are presently busy greeting customers at over 70 SoftBank mobile phone stores across Japan.

While Nestle has reported slow growth in many of the big markets, figures remain positive in Japan, where offbeat marketing tactics seem to have played out profitably.

Nestle's Japanese unit is also in the process of rolling out a new Kit Kat this year that can be baked into cookies.