Hon Hai Precision Industry and Japan’s Softbank have launched the Pepper humanoid robot’s into the Taiwanese commercial market. The launch was also the first time Pepper has been made available outside of Japan, after the robot was launched on the Japanese market in June last year.

Asia Pacific Telecom Co, a subsidiary of Hon Hai, has started taking preorders from businesses. The company will begin shipping the products to enterprises in late September.

Pepper is available to business clients through a 24-month rental contract, in which they would pay a NT$26,888 monthly rental fee. The fee covers the customized speech for Pepper, technical support, software upgrades and post-sales service. A broken unit will be replaced within 24 hours to ensure Pepper’s operational uptime.

The robot can speak Chinese, English and Japanese, but Hon Hai has not ruled out the adding the ability to speak Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese).

Asustek Computerhas also introduced its own "Zenbo" service robot to the market.