Billionaire Masayoshi Son will start selling his humanoid robots named "Pepper" at Sprint stores in the US by next summer.

SoftBank has received 300 to 400 inquiries about Pepper from companies in finance, food service and education, according to SoftBank Robotics chief executive Fumihide Tomizawa.

The 1.2m robot dances, makes jokes and estimates human emotions based on expressions.

It will go in sale in Japan in February for 198,000 yen (€1,400).

Mr Son said in 2010 his vision was to create a society that coexists with intelligent robots. – (Bloomberg)