Guide
Collaborative picking robots: what Locus and Geek+ customers actually confirm
One customer has put its own name to a large fleet of collaborative picking robots: DHL Supply Chain. In a February 2026 LinkedIn post, DHL said "a fleet of several thousand LocusBots operating across more than 40 DHL-managed sites" had completed one billion picks. DHL does not give an exact count. Its last exact global figure, on its Locus page in mid-2023, was 3,000 robots, when it said it would reach 5,000 by the end of that year. It has not said whether it got there.
Geek+, the Hong Kong-listed maker of goods-to-person robots, publishes the biggest audited-company numbers: "over 81,000 robots" shipped and "over 1,000 end customers" as of June 30, 2026. Its annual report names no customer, and its largest customer by revenue in 2024 was an integrator that resells Geek+ systems. Where Geek+ customers do speak, as MISUMI in Japan and LPP in Poland do in Geek+ releases, they confirm the project and leave the numbers to Geek+.
Measured results are thin on both sides. DHL's "30% to 180%" gain in units picked per hour is the only customer-published productivity range across a fleet. Every other figure here is a vendor number or a best day. Servospace arithmetic on DHL's and Locus's own pick milestones gives an average of roughly 130 to 315 picks per robot per day, far below the best single day a vendor release reports.
Analysis based on DHL Group releases, web pages, investor deck and 2025 annual report; Geek+'s Hong Kong prospectus, 2025 annual report and 2026 interim report; SEC filings by Locus Robotics and two of its investors; Locus and Geek+ releases and blog posts; and trade and news reports, all retrieved November 11, 2026. Some DHL pages blocked our tools and were read through a web-fetch service; that is noted where it matters. AI assistance was used in research and drafting, and the piece was checked by a separate AI fact-check and AI editorial review. Servospace did not visit any site, interview the companies named, or see operating data. Calculations are Servospace arithmetic on published figures and are labeled as such.
In this analysis
- The short answer
- Two ways to stop pickers walking
- What kind of evidence each number is
- DHL and Locus: the count over time
- Locus beyond DHL: vendor releases with customer quotes
- Geek+: what the filings count
- Geek+ customer by customer
- Per robot, per site, per day
- Marketing claims versus measured results
- Business models and who carries the risk
- Counterevidence and limits
- What a buyer should ask for
The short answer
- Customer-confirmed, large, but approximate: DHL Supply Chain and Locus Robotics. DHL's own words: "several thousand LocusBots," "more than 40 DHL-managed sites," one billion picks (February 2026). In July 2025 DHL said more than 750 assisted-picking robots from Locus and 6 River Systems were live across 18 sites in the UK, Ireland and EMEA.
- Customer-confirmed result, as a range: DHL's "30-180% increase in per-hour units picked" and "80% decrease in training time," credited on its own page to "DHL, Locus" (June 2023). No site, baseline or time window is given.
- Named customers in vendor releases, with robot counts: The Quality Group (350 Locus robots, 400 at peak, one site in Germany), Radial (87 Locus robots in daily operations and an expanded fleet of 104 peak robots at one Kentucky site), MISUMI (149 Geek+ robots across two Japanese sites), LPP Logistics (more than 1,600 Geek+ robots across two Polish sites), DHL New Zealand (41 Geek+ robots at one Auckland site) and S&S Activewear (340 Geek+ robots at one Illinois site). The customers are quoted in some of these releases. None of the customer quotes contains a robot count. TQG site manager Cihan Yasar does state the site is "Running 60,000 orders per day" and chose RaaS "over a €20 to €30 million fixed infrastructure investment." The 350-robot count, 400 at peak, 500,000-pick day and 400-600 units per hour sit in Locus's text, not in that quote.
- Filed, audited-company totals with no names: Geek+ "shipped over 81,000 robots" to "over 1,000 end customers" (June 30, 2026). Its five largest customers were about 42.9% of 2025 revenue. Locus is private and files no operating figures. Its own October 2026 release claims 22,000 robots, 360 sites and 8.5 billion picks.
If you want the arm-based alternative, where a robot does the pick itself, see our guide to robot piece picking. Cube storage is covered in AutoStore's installed base, and pallet moves in autonomous forklifts.
Two ways to stop pickers walking
In a manual warehouse, pickers spend much of the shift walking to shelves. Mobile robots attack that walk in two ways.
- Person-to-goods (Locus): a cart-sized robot drives to each pick location and a nearby associate puts the item in its tote. People stay in zones while the robots travel. The shelving does not change. Locus says most of its picks come from this model, using its Origin and Vector robots (Locus, March 2026).
- Goods-to-person (Geek+): robots lift a shelf, tote or pallet and bring it to a fixed workstation where the person picks. Geek+ sells shelf-to-person, tote-to-person (RoboShuttle), PopPick and pallet-to-person versions.
The difference matters for evidence. A person-to-goods "pick" is a human pick that a robot carried. A goods-to-person "line" is a pick at a station that robots fed. Neither figure is a robot picking anything, and the two are not directly comparable.
What kind of evidence each number is
| Evidence type | Example here | Establishes | Does not establish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer's own post, page or release | DHL: "several thousand LocusBots" at "more than 40" sites | The customer runs the fleet at that scale | Exact count, sites by name, rate per robot |
| Customer annual report | DHL Group 2025: "7,500+ robots" overall | Group-wide robot total | How many are Locus, or are picking robots |
| Exchange filing, vendor | Geek+ "shipped over 81,000 robots" | Cumulative shipments, audited-company reporting | How many are running today, or for whom |
| Vendor release quoting a named customer | TQG site manager on choosing robot subscriptions | The customer stands behind the quote | Numbers in the release body unless the customer says them |
| Vendor release or blog | Locus 22,000 robots, 360 sites | The vendor's claim | Any customer's confirmation |
| Investor and lender filings | Hercules and Neostellar marks on Locus shares | How two holders value the company | Customer results |
| Servospace arithmetic | Picks per robot per day | Order of magnitude from published totals | A rate for any site |
DHL and Locus: the count over time
DHL has published more about its Locus fleet than any other customer. The counts move and the labels change, so the as-of dates matter.
| As of | Locus robots at DHL | Sites | Picks to date | Source and type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| End of 2022 | 2,000 | Not given | Not given | Supply Chain Dive, May 2023 (press) |
| May 2023 | 3,000 "deployed," over 2,000 of them in North America | Not given; "across some of" DHL's 1,500 sites "depending if the operational profile fits" | Not given | DHL's Sally Miller by email to Supply Chain Dive; Robotics 24/7 Q&A (press, DHL statements) |
| June 2023 | 3,000 "currently deployed"; plan for 5,000 Locus Origin "by the end of 2023" | Not given | 250 million+ | DHL web page, "Updated: June 2023" (customer) |
| April 2025 | No count; Locus is DHL's "most mature robotic solution," in more than 10 countries | Not given | Not given | DHL Supply Chain capital markets day deck (customer) |
| July 2025 | More than 750 assisted-picking robots from Locus and 6 River Systems combined, UK, Ireland and EMEA only | 18 in that region | Not given | DHL release (customer) |
| February 2026 | "Several thousand" | More than 40 | 1 billion | DHL LinkedIn post (customer); Locus blog, Feb. 20, 2026 (vendor) |
Three things stand out.
The 5,000 target is unconfirmed. DHL planned 5,000 Locus Origin robots by the end of 2023. More than two years later, DHL says "several thousand," and Locus's own February 2026 blog still describes the 5,000 as "plans to deploy." Neither company has said the target was reached. That does not mean it was missed. It means a reader cannot cite 5,000 as a fleet size.
One trade report got the base wrong. Modern Materials Handling wrote in May 2023 that "DHL already had 2,000 of the AMRs deployed," so 3,000 more were being added. DHL's page and Miller's email both said 3,000 were deployed, with over 2,000 in North America. The 2,000 figure looks like the North American subset or the end-2022 count. Use DHL's own 3,000.
DHL's group totals do not split by vendor. DHL Group's online 2025 annual report says "7,500+ robots" are deployed across the group and, in the Supply Chain division section, "some 8,000 collaborative robots." It names Locus and Robust.AI as autonomous mobile robot partners but gives no Locus count. The two totals use different labels and we do not reconcile them.
Locus beyond DHL: vendor releases with customer quotes
Locus names other customers in its releases, and some quote the customer. Robot counts and pick rates are in the vendor's text, not the quotes, except where a named customer says them. TQG's site manager states 60,000 orders a day and the €20 to €30 million comparison; those figures are in his quote. Robot counts, the 500,000-pick day and the 400-600 units per hour are not.
The Quality Group, Elsdorf, Germany (Locus release, April 7, 2026). A 50,000-square-meter e-commerce center for sports nutrition brands that opened in February 2025. Locus says the fleet went from about 40 robots to 120, then 260, then 350 ("scaling to 400 during peak demand"). It says the site passed 30 million total picks and hit "500,000 picks in a single day," and that picker productivity in the fastest lanes reached "400 and 600 units per hour." The site targets about 60,000 orders a day and is "designed to handle 500,000 units daily as volumes ramp." The quoted site manager, Cihan Yasar, gives the order volume and the business reason: "Running 60,000 orders per day with daily volume swings requires more than automation," and "We deliberately chose the Locus RaaS model over a €20 to €30 million fixed infrastructure investment." The robot counts, the 500,000-pick day and the per-picker rates are in Locus's text, not in his quote.
Radial, Shepherdsville, Kentucky (Locus release, January 15, 2026). Locus says the site passed 25 million picks with "87 Locus Robots supporting daily operations and an expanded fleet of 104 peak robots," and that Radial runs "nearly 300 Locus robots" across its network. The release does not say when the count started, so 25 million cannot be turned into a rate. Radial's CEO is quoted on delivery confidence, without a number. The "quadrupling output through the same space" line is in the release body, not his quote.
Ryder appears only as the site of Locus's seven billionth pick, in a Locus blog post. Ryder's own statement is not part of this review.
Locus's own totals have grown fast, but they are vendor claims:
| As of | Customers | Sites | Robots | Cumulative picks | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2025 | Not given | Not given | Not given | 6 billion | Automated Warehouse (press) |
| January 2026 | "Over 150" | "Over 350" | Not given | Not given | Radial release boilerplate (vendor) |
| March 2, 2026 (blog published March 23) | Not given | "Hundreds" | "Thousands" | 7 billion | Locus blog (vendor) |
| October 6, 2026 | "More than 150" | "More than 360" | "Exceeds 22,000" | "More than 8.5 billion" | Locus release (vendor) |
Geek+: what the filings count
Geek+ (Beijing Geekplus Technology, HKEX: 2590) listed in Hong Kong in July 2025. Its filings give audited-company totals that Locus, as a private company, does not publish. The definitions matter.
"Shipped," not "running." The 2026 interim report says Geek+ "had shipped over 81,000 robots to more than 40 countries and regions" as of June 30, 2026, up from "over 72,000" at the end of 2025 in its 2025 annual report. Geek+'s own press release on those results turned that into "81,000 deployed robots." The filing says shipped. A shipped robot can be idle, replaced or retired.
"End customers" includes customers reached through resellers. The prospectus defines end customers as "businesses that actually deploy our AMR solutions, including those who directly purchase such solutions from us or through channel partners." The 1,000-plus is cumulative. The number that produced revenue in a single year is much smaller: the prospectus counts 324 "AMR solution end customers" for 2024, excluding channel partners, at an average of RMB7.41 million of revenue each.
Concentration is high, and the top buyer was an integrator. The five largest customers were about 42.9% of 2025 revenue of RMB3,171.0 million, and the largest about 10.6%. Two customers each passed 10%: "Customer A" at RMB335.7 million and "Customer B" at RMB336.0 million. The annual report gives Customer A's 2024 revenue as RMB374.4 million. That is the same figure the prospectus gives for its 2024 "Customer C," described as "an international technology group whose main business covers multiple fields, including digitization, pharmaceuticals, supply chain, paper and tobacco registered in Germany," and categorized as a channel partner. Servospace inference from the matching figure: Geek+'s top 2025 customer is probably that same reseller. The description fits Körber, Geek+'s global integration partner since 2020, but the filings do not name it. When a reseller is the biggest buyer, the operator who runs the robots is one step removed from the filing.
The prospectus describes other top customers without naming them, including a Spanish fashion conglomerate (15.4% of 2023 revenue, 3.6% in 2024), a South Korean e-commerce retailer (8.9% in 2024) and a U.S. courier (13.1% in 2023). We do not guess their names.
Case studies without counts. The prospectus says a U.S. third-party logistics customer using shelf-to-person picking "tripled their picking efficiency, and now handles up to 350,000 items per day," with no robot count or site. A Chinese automaker cut warehouse staffing "from 32 to 18, representing a 78% improvement in labor productivity." Servospace arithmetic: 32 divided by 18 is 1.78, so the 78% is consistent if output stayed the same. A European pharmacy chain got 22 RS8-DA and 50 P40 robots across nine stations, with no result figure.
Geek+ customer by customer
| Customer and site | Robots (as of) | What the customer says | What only Geek+ says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DHL Supply Chain, Auckland, New Zealand | 41 (Geek+ release, Aug. 2026) | DHL said at the October 2025 opening that the site was highly automated with "sophisticated robot pickers," per RNZ; no vendor or count in that report | 41 RoboShuttle robots, "largest Goods-to-Person robotic fleet operated in New Zealand," NZ$10 million of the NZ$90 million site cost went to automation | Geek+ |
| MISUMI, East and West Japan distribution centers | 149 across two sites, with 15 stations and 801 shelves (Oct. 20, 2026) | Executive Kosuke Hatano: the East's standardized procedures will be rolled out to the West and used to optimize all three domestic centers | Productivity "about 2x" and storage efficiency 2x at the East site versus before; no split of robots by site | Geek+ Japan release (Japanese) |
| LPP Logistics, two sites in Poland | "More than 1,600" (Sept. 2026 page) | CEO Sebastian Sołtys: Geek+ helps "improve flow efficiency and throughput"; no number | "99% measured efficiency gains" and 1.4 million storage locations; the 99% is not defined | Geek+ |
| S&S Activewear, Lockport, Illinois | 340 at one site; three sites in total (May 2024) | Not quoted; the release quotes Körber and Geek+ | System "designed to support more than 4,500 lines per hour through 24 picking stations" | Geek+ and Körber |
The pattern is the reverse of DHL and Locus. Customers here confirm that the project exists and that they plan to expand it. The productivity and storage figures come from Geek+. The S&S figure is a design capacity, not a measured rate.
Two DHL facts are worth putting side by side. DHL runs both models, Locus person-to-goods robots at 40-plus sites and a Geek+ goods-to-person fleet in Auckland. The Auckland robot count comes from a Geek+ page time-stamped about ten months after the opening, and DHL's opening remarks, as RNZ reported them, did not name the vendor.
Per robot, per site, per day
This is the improvement over our earlier guides: every headline count is normalized to one robot, one site or one day, only where the source supplies both the count and the time window. Where the robot count is uncertain, we show a range. All rows are Servospace arithmetic on published figures, not measured rates.
| Figure | Published inputs | Servospace arithmetic | What it is not |
|---|---|---|---|
| DHL average picks per robot per day | 250 million+ picks (mid-2023) to 1 billion (February 2026), about 975 days; 3,000 robots (2023) to 6,000, an illustrative upper bound for "several thousand" | About 770,000 picks a day across the network, or about 130 to 260 per robot per day | A site rate; fleet size over the period is not published |
| Locus network average per robot per day | 7 billionth pick on March 2, 2026 (per Locus's blog) to "more than 8.5 billion" in Locus's October 6, 2026 release, 218 days; 22,000 robots | At least about 6.9 million picks a day, or about 315 per robot per day | A per-shift rate; the 8.5 billion date is the release date, not the moment of the pick |
| Locus "units picked per second" | "200 to 300 units picked per second" globally (January 2026) | 17 million to 26 million a day if sustained around the clock, against about 80 per second implied by the milestones | The release does not say whether that is a peak or an operating-hours rate |
| TQG best day per robot | 500,000 picks in a day; 350 robots (400 at peak) | About 1,250 to 1,430 picks per robot that day | An average; the site's 30 million picks over roughly 14 months average about 70,000 a day, during a ramp |
| S&S design rate | 4,500 lines per hour, 24 stations, 340 robots | 187.5 lines per station-hour, about 13 lines per robot-hour | A measured rate; it is a design capacity |
| Robots per site | Locus: 22,000 robots, 360 sites; MISUMI: 149 robots, 15 stations | About 61 Locus robots per site on average; about 10 Geek+ robots per MISUMI station | Any given site's fleet |
| DHL share of Locus activity | DHL 1 billion picks of Locus's 7 billion; 40-plus of 350-plus sites | About 14% of picks, about 11% of sites | A revenue share; Locus does not report revenue |
The gap between the averages and the best day is the main lesson. Servospace arithmetic on Locus's milestones implies a few hundred picks per robot per day across the network, not a measured site rate. TQG's best day was about four times that per robot, and its best day was about seven times its own average. Both are true, and neither tells you what your site will do. A per-hour pick rate depends on how far apart the picks are, how many items each pick carries, how many people are in each zone and how many hours the robots run. Locus's own March 2026 blog says "each robot contributes thousands of picks per day"; its published milestones imply a few hundred on average. The arithmetic cannot say which robots, if any, reach thousands.
Marketing claims versus measured results
| Claim | Who says it | Type | Unit and window | Customer-measured? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "30-180% increase in per-hour units picked" | DHL page, credited "DHL, Locus" | Customer | Units per picker-hour; sites, baseline and dates not given | Yes, as an unexplained range |
| "2X-3X" productivity | DHL's Sally Miller, May 2023 | Customer (press) | Not specified | Customer statement, no data |
| "80% decrease in training time" | DHL page | Customer | Onboarding time | Yes, no method given |
| 400 to 600 units per hour per picker | Locus TQG release | Vendor | Ultra-fast-mover lanes only | Not in the customer's quote |
| "Quadrupling output through the same space" | Locus Radial release | Vendor | Not specified | Not in the customer's quote |
| "Tripled their picking efficiency"; 350,000 items a day | Geek+ prospectus | Vendor in a filing | Unnamed U.S. 3PL; robot count not given | No |
| About 2x productivity | Geek+ Japan release on MISUMI | Vendor | East Japan site versus prior operation | Not in MISUMI's quote |
| Payback "within 12-36 months" | Geek+ prospectus | Vendor in a filing | Typical, not customer-specific | No |
| 99.99% picking accuracy | Geek+ prospectus | Vendor in a filing | Not specified | No |
Only DHL publishes a productivity figure under its own name, and it is a range with no denominator.
Business models and who carries the risk
Locus rents robots. Its releases describe a "Robots-as-a-Service" subscription that lets a customer such as Radial flex capacity by "adding or removing cobots to match live order flow." Radial's expanded fleet of 104 peak robots, against 87 supporting daily operations, shows the model at work. The release does not say 104 were added on top of 87. Locus is private and does not report revenue. Its Form D filed in August 2026 shows $41.6 million of equity sold to 18 investors, with revenue marked "Decline to Disclose."
Two holders of Locus's Series F preferred shares value them very differently. Both paid about $43 a share, per Servospace arithmetic on their filings. Lender Hercules Capital carried its 15,116 shares at $378,000 on September 30, 2026, about $25 a share. Neostellar Capital carried its 232,568 shares at $12.5 million, about $54 a share. Hercules also holds a $65 million senior secured loan to Locus due December 2028, carried at about its face value. For an operator on a subscription, the vendor's finances matter because the robots, software and support come from the same company. These filings do not say Locus is in trouble. They show that two professional holders disagree on what its equity is worth.
Geek+ mostly sells systems. Sales of robotics solutions were 99.9% of 2025 revenue, and warehouse fulfillment 95.3%. Subscription services are growing from a small base: RMB155.7 million of orders in the first half of 2026, about 6.5% of RMB2,384.8 million in new orders by Servospace arithmetic. Geek+ reported a first-half 2026 loss of RMB176.5 million, or an adjusted loss of RMB60.6 million.
Competitors. DHL's own materials name Locus, 6 River Systems and Robust.AI as picking-robot partners. Geek+ names DHL as a customer in New Zealand. Geek+'s annual report claims 23% of the global warehouse fulfillment robot market and 48.5% of shelf-to-person, citing third-party research. Locus cites Interact Analysis for the top revenue spot in the Americas. These are vendor-cited rankings, not customer evidence.
Counterevidence and limits
- DHL's exact fleet is not public. "Several thousand" could be 3,000 or 6,000, and 5,000 was only DHL's 2023 target. Every DHL per-robot figure above is a range for that reason.
- The Locus 22,000 and 360 are vendor claims. No customer, filing or auditor in this review confirms them. EDGAR full-text search for "Locus Robotics" from 2023 to November 11, 2026 found lenders, funds and investors, not customer operating disclosures.
- Geek+'s "shipped" is not "running." Neither filing reports active fleet size or retirements.
- Vendor release dates are not event dates. The Geek+ Auckland release is time-stamped August 2026. RNZ reported the opening on October 31, 2025. The robot count may describe the site at opening or later.
- Releases quoting customers are still vendor releases. Robot counts and pick rates are in the vendor's text, not the quotes, except where a named customer says them. TQG's site manager states 60,000 orders a day and the €20 to €30 million comparison; those figures are in his quote. Robot counts, the 500,000-pick day and the 400-600 units per hour are not.
- The Geek+ top-customer match is an inference. It rests on one identical revenue figure across two filings.
- No unit economics. No customer publishes a robot's cost, subscription price or payback. TQG's €20 million to €30 million is the customer's estimate of the fixed automation it avoided, not the cost of its robots. The NZ$10 million at Auckland covers all automation at the site, not only the 41 robots.
- Labor is not removed. Person-to-goods robots still need a person at every pick, and goods-to-person stations still need a picker. None of the sources publishes staff per robot or the share of picks needing help.
What a buyer should ask for
A collaborative-picking claim becomes evidence when it carries its denominator.
| Missing field | Ask for |
|---|---|
| Robot count and as-of date | Robots running this month, by site, separate from peak rentals and units on order |
| Site and task | Which site, which picks (each, case, replenishment), and the share of the site's lines the robots handle |
| Rate | Units or lines per picker-hour and per robot-hour, averaged over normal weeks, separate from the best day |
| Baseline | The manual rate the improvement is measured against, at the same site and season |
| Hours | Scheduled versus productive robot-hours, and charging downtime |
| People | Pickers per zone or station, and staff for exceptions and maintenance |
| Commercial terms | Purchase or subscription, price per robot-month, minimum term, and what happens to peak robots after peak |
| Customer confirmation | A statement the customer will publish under its own name |
| Vendor health | For subscriptions, the vendor's funding and what happens to the fleet if support ends |
The same customer test is applied to Symbotic's Walmart systems and to humanoid pilots in our guide to humanoid deployments beyond Agility, where a GXO pilot has a humanoid carrying cardboard away from a Locus robot. DHL's container-unloading robots are covered in robot trailer loading versus unloading. More coverage is on our warehouse robots topic page.
The next checkpoints are Geek+'s 2026 annual report (expected around April 2027), which will update shipments, customers and concentration; any DHL statement of its current Locus count; and Locus's next pick milestone. This guide will be reviewed when one of those is published, or within 90 days.
How the sources were used
Customer posts, web pages, investor decks, releases and annual reports are treated as the customer's own statements. Statements by DHL staff quoted in trade press are labeled as press. Vendor releases are treated as vendor claims, and named customer staff quoted in them are noted, along with what their quotes do and do not say. Geek+ figures are from its Hong Kong prospectus, 2025 annual report and 2026 interim report. Locus financing facts are from SEC filings by Locus and two of its investors. The DHL web page, July 2025 release, April 2025 deck and LinkedIn post blocked our tools and were read through a web-fetch service. A robot chart in the April 2025 deck could not be read reliably and is not used. Calculations are simple divisions and subtractions of published figures, labeled as Servospace arithmetic. Corrections can be sent through Servospace's contact page.