Recently, Yunjing Intelligent announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$100 million and the start of the Pro-IPO round of financing. The focus of this round of financing is not only on sweeping robots. Yunjing Intelligent founder Zhang Junbin told the reporter of China Business News that the new round of financing funds will be used for the company’s embodied intelligent product development and global market expansion.
In addition to Yunjing Intelligent’s business expansion, other manufacturers are also looking for new growth curves in the face of the sweeping robot market, which has a relatively low penetration rate but is already very competitive. Each company has its own anchor direction.
At AWE (China Home Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo) in March this year, Dreamie displayed refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines and other home appliances, expanding from single smart hardware to whole-house appliances. Previously, Stone Technology was already making washing machines, and Ecovacs entered the field of lawn mowers.
Starting from the sweeping robot, what is the best direction of expansion? The market still needs to wait for an answer. However, as the field of embodied intelligence becomes more and more active, the generalization ability of AI is visibly enhanced. Whether to do embodied intelligence and how to do it are probably topics that sweeping robot manufacturers cannot avoid.
The market for sweeping robots has grown significantly, which is a rare good news for this track in recent years. According to data from market research firm IDC, the global intelligent sweeping robot market will ship 20.603 million units in 2024, with sales of US$9.31 billion, up 11.2% and 19.7% year-on-year, respectively. With the help of the “national subsidy” policy for replacing old appliances with new ones, the domestic market will also pick up in 2024. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, the online and offline sales of sweeping robots in 2024 increased by 39.66% and 90.56% respectively, and the total sales increased by 41.1% year-on-year.
Before that, the market had experienced hesitation. According to data from GfK, China Market Research and other institutions, the global sweeping robot market size increased by 18% year-on-year in 2021, and the growth momentum in the next two years was insufficient, with a year-on-year flat and an increase of 0.8%, respectively.
The domestic market has even experienced a decline in sales after rapid growth. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, in 2020 and 2021, domestic sweeping robot sales maintained a high growth rate of double digits. However, in 2021 and 2022, market sales declined, and in 2022, sales growth slowed year-on-year. In 2023, manufacturers began to “catch their breath” and ushered in a slight increase in sales.
Under the overall market demand changes, the performance of the two domestic listed companies of sweeping robots has been mixed in the past few years. Ecovacs has experienced a decline in net profit, while Stone Technology has maintained continuous revenue growth, but net profit has not always kept pace with revenue growth.
From 2021 to 2023, Ecovacs’ revenue continued to grow, and the growth rate dropped from 80.9% in 2021 to 1.16% in 2023. Ecovacs’ net profit was 2.01 billion yuan in 2021, and it dropped to 612 million yuan in 2023. In the first three quarters of 2024, Ecovacs’ net profit improved, with a slight year-on-year increase of 1.88%.
Stone Technology’s revenue maintained a double-digit annual percentage growth from 2021 to 2023, and its net profit increased to 2.051 billion yuan in 2023. According to the latest financial report, Stone Technology’s revenue in 2024 increased by 38.03% year-on-year, a higher growth rate than in previous years. However, in order to strengthen market expansion, sales expenses increased by 70% year-on-year, and net profit in 2024 decreased by 3.64% year-on-year to 1.977 billion yuan.
Behind the fluctuations in market growth and the uneven performance of manufacturers, the penetration rate of sweeping robots is not high, but the competition is already fierce.
A sweeping robot practitioner told reporters that the penetration rate is not increasing very fast, including the cost and experience have not yet reached a state that users are very recognized. “There are still many things that can be upgraded in sweeping machines, such as solving the problem that many elderly people can’t use it, whether it can be made quieter, longer life, better cleaning and human-computer interaction, etc., are the key to the industry’s high penetration rate.”
Zhang Junbin said. According to Aowei Cloud Network data, the domestic penetration rate of sweeping robots was 5.5% last year. In 2024, the market share of the top five (top five) brands of domestic sweeping robots reached 93.6%.
Last year, the world’s top five brands had a market share of about 60%, and the overseas market concentration was relatively low, which is the background for many manufacturers to find growth overseas. Some practitioners told reporters that in some overseas markets, products can be sold at higher prices. Going overseas is conducive to increasing gross profit margins, while the corresponding market expansion-related expenses will increase.
The latest financial report shows that last year, Stone Technology’s overseas revenue exceeded domestic revenue. Dreame’s overseas sales accounted for more than 60% last year, and Ecovacs’ overseas revenue accounted for more than 40% in the first half of last year. Yunjing went overseas relatively late, and its overseas revenue accounted for about 30% last year. Zhang Junbin told reporters that this proportion is planned to reach 50% this year.
However, as an incremental market, the overseas market also faces some uncertainties. Zhang Junbin told reporters that the company’s overseas expansion covers 50 countries, and core countries and regions include Japan, South Korea, North America, Australia, Germany, etc.
Affected by tariff policies, there are more factors to consider for overseas expansion, such as where overseas production lines should be moved. But Zhang Junbin said that a single country cannot affect the pace of going overseas, and there is still a lot of room for expansion in the global market.
In the field of sweeping robots, the question that manufacturers need to think about all the time is whether product innovation can drive consumer demand and whether the increase in average price will backfire on sales. While striving to increase the penetration rate of sweeping robots, how to expand beyond the category of sweeping robots is another proposition faced by sweeping robot manufacturers.
Earlier attempts came from Roborock and Ecovacs. In 2023, Roborock released its first molecular sieve washer-dryer H1. In 2024, Roborock’s “other smart electrical products” including washing machines and other products had a revenue of 1.07 billion yuan, a small proportion of revenue, but a growth rate of over 90%. Ecovacs previously deployed lawn mowers and window cleaning robots.
At AWE in March this year, Dreame displayed products such as air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers and microwave ovens. In an interview, the person in charge of Dreame air conditioners said that when understanding the underlying technology, it was found that the gap between air conditioning and cleaning was not that big. The key points of the motor include generating greater energy conversion in a small volume. The robotic arm of the sweeping robot is a motor, which can also convert energy to transfer mechanical energy to the wind guide blades for wind control.
There is a consensus that sweeping robot manufacturers need to expand their product categories, but there is no complete consensus on what new product categories are the best. Zhang Junbin said that if the company wants to expand its scale, diversification is the only way, but the company will be relatively restrained in expanding its product categories and will not get involved in tracks such as refrigerators and washing machines with a market penetration rate of more than 90%. In comparison, there is more room for imagination in the direction of robots.
As one of the few movable household appliances in the home, sweeping robots are closer to embodied intelligence, and the complexity of the AI algorithm of the sweeping robot itself is also increasing.
Hu Chunxu, head of the developer ecosystem of Digua Robot, a manufacturer that provides chips and software, told reporters that the technical difficulty of sweeping robots is getting higher and higher. The original radar solution is relatively mature, but when the solution changes from radar to AI binocular vision, the algorithm complexity is much higher, and the complexity of home scenes is also higher than that of roads. “The road environment is relatively structured, and sweeping robots need to face socks and clothes thrown everywhere, power strips with changing positions, and children running around.”
Previously, sweeping robot manufacturers have made some attempts related to embodied intelligence. At CES (International Consumer Electronics Show) in January this year, Dreame equipped the sweeping robot with a manipulator and a large model of embodied intelligence. The manipulator can pick up socks. Stone Technology also exhibited a sweeping robot with a manipulator at the show. However, the addition of the manipulator increases the thickness of the sweeping robot, and whether it is a good form remains to be verified by the market.
Zhang Junbin told reporters that many sweeping robots have entered households and have done a good job of AI generalization training, and can identify a variety of obstacles. Sweeping robots still have room for breakthroughs in the direction of AI intelligence, and AI intelligence is the key driving force for the next stage of growth in the industry. Sweeping robots and embodied intelligent products also have a series of common technologies, such as AI binocular vision technology, transmission design, battery safety technology, etc.
Regarding the embodied intelligent products that Yunjing intends to make, Zhang Junbin revealed that the relevant products are consumer-grade products, and the functions will focus on storage and cleaning, not all-encompassing, and the cost of developing the product is relatively controllable. In the supply chain, many parts of embodied intelligent products and sweeping robots are common.
The new home embodied smart products are planned to be launched at the end of next year, with the long-term goal of achieving an annual sales volume of more than 100,000 units. He said that in the future, cleaning will move from plane to space, and the choice to reveal more embodied smart plans now is that more technologies are close to maturity, and related technical support includes AI generalization and computing power.
However, Zhang Junbin also said that from two-dimensional plane space to three-dimensional space, the computing power and control complexity are much higher than plane, and many technical breakthroughs are needed.
“It will take time for robots in the field of smart home to come out.” Hu Chunxu said that there are more sweeping robots in homes now, and there may be automatic robots equipped with screens in the future that can control home appliances, sweep the floor, cook, and perform more and more complex tasks.
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