Hugging Face's Robot Duck Sells $2.6M in 24 Hours, Blows Past Christmas Delivery Window

A $399 robot duck has become an unlikely breakout hit in the consumer robotics market. Hugging Face cofounder Thomas Wolf announced that Microduck — a nearly 10-inch-tall, two-legged, one-eyed robot developed by French robotics firm Pollen Robotics — racked up over $2.6 million in orders within its first 24 hours on sale. The surge was so swift that within just six hours of the Thursday announcement, preorders had already crossed the $1 million mark.

Demand overwhelmed supply so quickly that Pollen's checkout page now warns buyers that Christmas delivery is no longer guaranteed for new orders, with current estimates pushed out to four to six months. The company says it's ramping up production on a first-ordered, first-shipped basis.

Microduck is Pollen's second consumer-facing robot, following the Reachy Mini, a desktop bot that can hold AI-powered conversations and wiggle antennas. Unlike its stationary predecessor, Microduck can walk, sit, stand, kick a miniature soccer ball, pick up small objects with its plastic beak-like mandible, and right itself after falling over. A $39 accessory pack even lets it skate on rollers. Developers can train new movements by running a virtual version of the duck through a physics simulator, then transferring behaviors to the physical robot as ONNX files — and sharing them with the broader community. The hardware includes a camera, lidar, and two motion sensors. Already, users are posting videos of the duck doing somersaults and fetching stray socks, with Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue amplifying the clips on social media.

The launch lands at a pivotal moment for Hugging Face: just one day before Microduck was unveiled, reports emerged that Nvidia is in talks to acquire the AI startup in a deal that could value it at over $13 billion. The duck's debut signals Hugging Face's broader ambition to push AI beyond chatbots and into physical, consumer-accessible machines — part of an industry-wide race that also includes Tesla, 1X, and Hyundai exploring how humanoid and semi-humanoid robots could enter everyday homes.