iRobot Corporation (IRBT)’s Earnings Beat Shows Bright Future

Still, at a lighter weight of 30 pounds:  “..and while PackBot doesn’t have six individual wheels, navigation certainly hasn’t been an issue; its tank-like treads allow it to easily climb obstacles like stairs, and it can achieve a top speed of 5.8 mph, not significantly slower than the 7.2 mph of the CUTLASS,” the managing director continued.

However, as robotics are a guaranteed growth industry moving forward, I believe all sorts of new competition will be heading its way to grab a piece of the growing pie. And that’s the key word, “growing.” Today, iRobot Roomba’s vacuum our houses, tomorrow we’ll be being picked up by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s “driver-less cars.”

Bottom line

I have been bullish on iRobot for a while now, and believe that the company remains a potential acquisition target for a company like Google, which will no doubt crave the company’s patents and know how. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) would be able to bring massive amounts of marketing muscle behind iRobot, which I see as one of iRobot’s main weaknesses.

This would be a win for both Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT), and would deliver a large potential return for iRobot shareholders. The acquisition would be a proverbial drop in the bucket for Google as well, as the company has more than $15 billion in cash on its books. The company has been acquiring companies from Zagat to Android (yes, Android was once a separate company), and it’s not random that the division still has this name.

Even if it’s not bought, the future is incredibly bright for robotics in general, and we will see a rapid expansion in the number of bots affecting our everyday lives. With the glowing financial numbers reported, I remain long on iRobot. Though obviously as the stock moves higher the valuation becomes less attractive, I still believe that iRobot remains poised for more growth ahead.

The article iRobot’s Earnings Beat Shows Bright Future originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Margie Nemcick-Cruz.

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