Yamabiko wants robotic lawn mower unit sales to grow more than 20% a year, nearly double the roughly 13% annual growth it expects for the professional robotic-mower market through 2028. The Tokyo-listed maker of outdoor power equipment laid out the target in an August 26 investor presentation that treats automated turf care not as a niche product line but as its main growth engine, pointing to labor shortages and rising wage costs among landscaping crews worldwide as the opening.
Of the roughly 38,000 golf courses worldwide, Yamabiko is targeting about 30,000 across North America, Europe and Japan, arguing that staff shortages and management costs make course operators receptive to automation. It plans to press into that market largely through The Toro Company, the US turf-equipment maker it began partnering with in 2025 to widen distribution across North America and Europe.
The pitch rests on three technologies bundled into the machines. RTK-GNSS satellite positioning lets a mower follow a set path rather than wander at random, roughly tripling the mowed area per charge compared with Yamabiko's standard models. WiseNav software maps work boundaries virtually, removing the buried perimeter wire earlier robotic mowers needed. WiseCut adjusts blade height automatically between 10mm and 90mm, so one machine can handle a fairway and its rough without a manual reset. The robots are built at Yamabiko Europe S.A. in Belgium, the former Belrobotics S.A. that Yamabiko consolidated as a subsidiary in 2014.
The growth pitch arrives alongside a quarter that gives management room to fund it. Sales for the six months to June rose 13.7% to ¥103.8bn, operating profit jumped 37.0% to ¥16.1bn and net profit attributable to shareholders climbed 54.2% to ¥11.6bn, helped by refunds of US tariffs and a weaker yen against the euro and dollar. Management cited robotic mower sales in Europe among the contributors to the gain, then used the results to raise full-year guidance to ¥190bn in sales and ¥23bn in operating profit, up from ¥185bn and ¥21bn at its previous forecast in May, and lifted the annual dividend to ¥110 per share, ¥20 more than the prior year.
| Metric | H1 result / Guidance | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Net sales (H1) | ¥103.8bn | +13.7% YoY |
| Operating profit (H1) | ¥16.1bn | +37.0% YoY |
| Net profit (H1) | ¥11.6bn | +54.2% YoY |
| Full-year sales guidance | ¥190bn | Up from ¥185bn |
| Full-year operating profit guidance | ¥23bn | Up from ¥21bn |
| Annual dividend | ¥110/share | +¥20 YoY |
The 20%-plus target and the market growth figures are Yamabiko's own projections, credited to a Markets & Markets industry report rather than independent verification. The presentation gives no current unit or revenue figure for the robotic mower business itself, so there is no baseline yet against which to check whether the company is actually outrunning the market it says it will beat.