A new programmable personal robot shaped like a duck, launched by the French subsidiary of Hugging Face, has seen explosive demand since pre-orders opened. The Microduck, developed by Pollen Robotics, has already generated over $4 million in sales at its $399 price point, with delivery dates for new orders now slipping beyond the initially promised Christmas 2026 window.
Priced at $399 per unit, the Microduck robot has generated over $4 million in revenue since pre-orders began. The overwhelming response means that new orders can no longer guarantee the originally promised delivery before Christmas 2026. The duck-shaped device is equipped with a full suite of sensors and motors, with its onboard computing powered by a Rockchip RK3566 chip, a technology licensed from UK-based semiconductor firm ARM.
The product represents a vivid illustration of how deeply intertwined the global technology supply chain has become. A popular new programmable personal robot from a Franco-American venture runs on a chip from Chinese listed company Rockchip, which itself is built on architectural technology licensed from Britain's ARM Holdings.
Lian Jye Su, principal analyst at Omdia, noted that the Shanghai-listed Rockchip is a core supplier in the field of on-device artificial intelligence. He highlighted that Rockchip processors are widely deployed in machine vision applications such as object detection and image recognition. "While Rockchip's chip shipments are massive in scale, their processing power limits make them unsuitable for complex edge AI devices," Su said.
Powerful on-device computing capabilities enable smartphones, robots, and other electronic devices to run generative AI tools securely without transmitting data to the cloud. Rockchip reported its half-year results last month, revealing first-half revenue growth of 40% year-on-year to RMB 2.88 billion (approximately $428 million), while net profit excluding one-off items surged more than 60%.
The Microduck weighs 800 grams (1.76 pounds) and functions both as a consumer-facing interactive toy and as a development platform. Leveraging open-source software, it can perform a variety of actions and execute goal-oriented tasks. This product marks the second robot release from French startup Pollen Robotics, which has been acquired by Hugging Face. The company revealed that its first-generation robot, introduced last spring, has accumulated cumulative sales exceeding 10,000 units.
Just ahead of the Microduck launch, The Information reported that Nvidia had reached an agreement to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. Neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face has commented on the report. Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf posted on social media Monday that orders were flooding in and that Microduck pre-orders had hit the upper limits of the e-commerce backend system.
Other manufacturers are also introducing similar humanoid or personal robot products targeting the premium consumer market. Startup Zeroth released a child-sized humanoid robot this summer, priced at RMB 8,888, emphasizing virtual simulation learning capabilities. The product has already secured 247 pre-orders on the JD.com platform, with the company planning to launch its own open-source robot system on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Mondo Robotics' Beni, a camera robot resembling Wall-E from the animated film, has far exceeded its initial $50,000 crowdfunding goal on Kickstarter, with the campaign running until September 6. The device, which resembles a wheeled action camera, starts at an early-bird price of $549, with shipments expected to begin in October.