Pudu after IFA 2026: 200 CC1 robots at Denner and a European headquarters in Germany

After exhibiting at IFA in Berlin for the first time, in early September 2026, Pudu Robotics set out its European strategy: a presence in more than twenty countries, a European headquarters planned in Germany, and a series of reference deployments in retail, hospitality and healthcare. The most telling for our clients: 200 PUDU CC1 robots in service in Denner supermarkets in Switzerland. This article sums up what was announced, what it says about how the CC1 is used in stores, and what it means for anyone equipping a site with Pudu robots.

What Pudu announced

In the press release it published on 14 September 2026, after IFA, Pudu Robotics reports a presence in more than twenty European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Poland and Spain. The manufacturer has offices in Germany and the Netherlands, with support teams working in five European languages, and it announces the opening of a European headquarters in Germany to coordinate its operations.

Worldwide, Pudu says it has shipped more than 130,000 robots to more than 85 countries and regions, and presents itself as the leading commercial service robotics company by revenue and by shipment volume, according to the research firm Frost & Sullivan. These are the manufacturer's own figures: we report them as published, without being able to check them independently.

What Pudu showed in Berlin

IFA, held from 4 to 8 September 2026 at Messe Berlin, is best known as a consumer electronics show. Pudu used its first appearance there to present its whole portfolio to a European audience, well beyond cleaning. On the cleaning side, two machines were on the stand: the CC1 Pro, which sweeps, scrubs, vacuums and mops, and the MT1 Max, the large sweeper designed for car parks and warehouses, with 3D perception and autonomous navigation. According to the manufacturer, the CC1 series has now passed 20,000 units shipped worldwide.

The rest of the stand showed where Pudu is heading beyond floors: delivery robots for restaurants and hotels, a transport robot for industrial loads of up to 600 kg, a quadruped robot and a semi-humanoid robot, the PUDU D7, which was making its European debut. For a facilities manager, these machines are mainly a sign of the manufacturer's scale and research effort; the cleaning range remains the part of the business that directly concerns floor care.

200 CC1 robots in Denner supermarkets

The deployment Pudu puts forward is Denner, the Swiss supermarket chain owned by the Migros group, which operates 200 CC1 robots. Pudu presents it as one of the benchmark large-scale deployments in Europe. Other retail chains are also named: MediaMarkt, Albert Heijn, Carrefour in Poland and EDEKA in Germany.

For a store manager, the number matters less than what lies behind it: a compact robot that scrubs during or after opening hours, between the aisles, with a docking station that handles water and charging, and an organisation able to run hundreds of machines across a network of stores. That is exactly the use we describe in our guide to the retail cleaning robot.

Why the CC1 suits a supermarket floor

The figures published for the CC1 explain why a food retailer would choose it for a store network. The machine is 552 mm wide and 695 mm high, small enough to work between gondolas and around promotional displays. It sweeps, scrubs, vacuums and dust-mops in the same pass, which matters on a sales floor where dry debris (packaging, crumbs, grit brought in from the car park) sits alongside sticky spills. Its 15-litre clean and dirty water tanks, combined with a docking station, limit the refills that would otherwise fall to staff.

Noise is the other point. Pudu gives a level of under 70 dB(A) for the CC1, which makes daytime cleaning conceivable while customers are shopping, at a reduced speed and on the less busy aisles. The robot detects people and obstacles, slows down and goes around them. Finally, its 4G and Wi-Fi connectivity lets a head office follow the whole fleet from the manufacturer's cloud platform, which is the condition for running 200 machines without 200 separate supervisors. The practical side of that supervision is covered in our article on running a cleaning robot fleet day to day.

Hospitality and healthcare

The press release also names hotels in Austria, Poland and Spain, including a Parkhotel in Austria and a Marriott in Poland, as well as St. Antonius Hospital in the Netherlands, where cleaning and logistics robots work side by side. Senior care and a German cleaning contractor are also listed among the references. These are the sectors where the CC1 and its variants are most often deployed: corridors, lobbies and communal areas, with the robot changing floors by lift.

In a hotel, the challenge is to keep cleaning invisible to guests; in a hospital, it is regularity, with the robot taking the long corridor passes while staff focus on rooms and high-risk areas. Our guides to the hotel cleaning robot and to robots in hospitals and care homes describe these uses in more detail.

What it changes for buyers

A manufacturer that settles in Europe for the long term, with local stock, shortens delivery times for machines and spare parts, which is decisive for continuity of service. The dual network announced, direct teams and authorised partners, is the one we work in: demonstration, commissioning, maintenance and replacement go through an authorised distributor such as Easy to Clean, with the manufacturer providing back-up.

For a buyer, three practical consequences follow. Parts availability becomes easier to commit to in a service contract. Software and platform support is more likely to be maintained over the life of the machine. And references in comparable buildings, in retail, hotels and hospitals, become easier to visit or ask about before deciding.

Source: Pudu Robotics press releases published in September 2026 around IFA Berlin (PR Newswire). Deployment and ranking figures are the manufacturer's own.

How to read a manufacturer's announcement

Press releases of this kind are useful for gauging a manufacturer's momentum, but they are not a performance test. A figure such as 200 robots at one retailer says that the machine can be deployed at scale; it does not say what output each robot achieves in a given store, how many assisted interventions it needs per day, or how the chain organised its staff around it.

Those answers come from the site itself. Before choosing a model, the useful questions remain the same: what floors, how many square metres per night or per day, which time slots, what clutter and what public presence. A trial on your own floor, compared with the manufacturer's figures, is the only reliable basis. To see where the CC1 sits against the rest of the Pudu range, read our guide on which Pudu robot to choose, or book a demonstration.

Sources and references

Regulations, public bodies and manufacturer documents this article draws on. Links open in a new tab.

• Pudu Robotics Deepens European Presence Following IFA 2026, Advancing a Scaled and Localized Growth Strategy (Pudu Robotics (PR Newswire)) : Pudu's European footprint after IFA 2026: 20+ countries, offices in Germany and the Netherlands, a planned European headquarters, and references including 200 CC1 robots at Denner.
• Pudu Robotics Makes Its IFA Debut, Bringing Its Full Robotics Portfolio to Europe (Pudu Robotics (PR Newswire)) : The machines shown at IFA 2026 in Berlin, including the CC1 Pro and MT1 Max, and the CC1 series passing 20,000 units shipped worldwide.