The gust of wind blowing from the "lazy economy" has brought east wind to the rise of the sweeping robot industry.
In this era of "laying flat", who would like to spend the best hours of the day sweeping and mopping the floor after a hard day's get off work and squeezing the bus and subway home?
The trend of intelligence is accompanied by the "lazy economy" and quickly sweeps all aspects of life, such as smart cabinets, smart robots, smart toilets, smart remote control, etc. Technology changes life and facilitates the "laying flat" generation.
The huge market potential has become a major engine for the rapid development of the intelligent sweeping robot industry. It not only attracted the entry of traditional home appliance companies such as Haier, Midea, Samsung, Panasonic, and Philips, but also gave birth to listed companies including Ecovacs.
Recently, Lesheng Intelligent, an ODM company for intelligent sweeping robots, recently completed a 200 million yuan A+ round of financing, which was exclusively led by Dachen Caizhi.
In fact, in the primary market, well-known investment institutions such as Sequoia, Hillhouse, Source Code, Shunwei, and ByteDance have taken a fancy to the rapid growth and huge market space of the sweeping robot market, and have made large-scale layouts on the sweeping robot track. For example, in June 2020, Cloud Whale’s C round of financing, ByteDance, Sequoia China, Source Code Capital, and Hillhouse Ventures appeared in the investor list at the same time.
Behind the many entrants, it is worth thinking about: Is this industry really so attractive? With the capital support of various competitors, how much market cake can Lesheng Intelligent have?
How "smart" is Lesheng Intelligent?
Lesheng Intelligent is an ODM company established in 2017 focusing on the field of sweeping robots. It has its own core technology and R&D capabilities. It is building its own patch factory and injection molding factory to improve the supply chain. Serving many leading brands in the industry, it can produce products of various grades including independent cleaning, integrated sweeping and mopping, self-cleaning and so on. The monthly production capacity in the peak season can reach 300,000 units, and the annual output value is nearly 1 billion yuan.
Since its inception, it has focused on developing and manufacturing sweeping robots for customers. It has self-developed solutions in laser path planning, self-cleaning and other technical fields. It is the first to launch laser-integrated path planning solutions and obstacle avoidance algorithms. Familiar with the technical solutions and production process of mainstream products in the market. Its intelligent manufacturing production line covers an area of more than 100,000 square meters and employs more than 1,600 people.
Sweeping robot products have the characteristics of rapid iteration. Enterprises need to continuously improve their research and development capabilities and continuously launch new products that meet market demand in order to maintain a stable market share in the industry.
As an ODM company, Lesheng Intelligent has experienced multiple iterations of sweeping robots: from a single function to integrated cleaning and mopping, to intelligent self-cleaning; the driving route has changed from random planning to intelligent planning using laser radar and AI visual recognition.
In the process of intelligent upgrading, Lesheng intelligent robot adopts the intelligent sweeping machine solution provided by the global AI+IoT platform Tuya Intelligence. In other words, Lesheng smart sweeper can provide users in Europe and the United States with a low-latency, high-speed experience. It is reported that the reliability of the Tuya intelligent cloud service platform has reached 99.99%, and the average response time has been shortened to 10ms, which can meet the needs of users for higher stability and security.
Through independent research and development, it has mastered the core technologies in four major fields: SLAM algorithm, LDS laser radar, AI artificial intelligence, and motion control module. At present, the product line of Lesheng Intelligent covers high, middle and low grades. Among them, low-end products, that is, sweepers with a single sweeping function with a random planning route, have a cleaning coverage of about 70%. At present, they are mainly sold to European and American markets, with an annual order quantity of 600,000-700,000 units. . For high-end products, the cleaning coverage rate can reach 97%, and the annual order quantity reaches 700,000-800,000 units.
From a global perspective, about 90% of sweeping robots are produced in China, and most of them are produced in the Pearl River Delta region. Lesheng Intelligent's factory is located in Dongguan, the core area of the Pearl River Delta manufacturing industry. Its orders are mainly overseas, with Europe and the United States each accounting for 30% of the market, and another 10% are sold to South Korea, Russia and other places.
Domestic customers mainly include Xiaomi ecological chain companies such as Yunmi and Ruimi, as well as uoni, Joyoung, Dahua, Lenovo, etc. In the peak production season of the first and fourth quarters, its peak monthly output can reach 300,000 units, with an average monthly production capacity of around 220,000 to 230,000 units, and its profit margin is slightly higher than the industry average.
Tens of billions of sweeping machine market, players have entered the game
With the continuous iteration of new technologies, sweeping robots will become a just-needed category of household cleaning like washing machines. On the demand side, with the increase in household income, the prevalence of the lazy economy, and changes in consumption preferences, consumers are prompted to purchase household robots. desire.
From the perspective of market size, according to the statistics of Quantuo, the sales of sweeping robots in 2020 will be 6.54 million units, and the sales scale will increase by 18% to reach 9.4 billion yuan. It is expected that my country's sweeping robots will continue to maintain rapid growth in 2021, and the market size is expected to exceed 10 billion.
However, according to relevant data, the penetration rate of sweeping robots in my country is only 4.14% in 2020, and even by 2021, the penetration rate may only be 4.71%, which is still less than 5%. This means that although the penetration rate of sweeping robots in my country has continued to increase in recent years, it is still at an extremely low level.
A large market space but a low penetration rate is not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. This means that sweeping robots are still a huge potential market in China. At present, it has a scale of nearly 10 billion. According to UBS’s calculations, it will increase by two or three times in the next three to four years. Incremental space, who would not want to seize such a definite opportunity?
The track is full of turmoil, and the entrants are also enjoying it. The enthusiasm of the capital for the track is higher than the wave. The innovative manufacturing Cobos and the innovative technology of Stone Technology have emerged as industry representative companies. Under the temptation of low market penetration, capital expects more small industry giants to emerge.
Especially after Covacs and Stone Technology went public, the market value, stock price and sales performance of the two star companies in the consumer market produced a huge halo effect, attracting all kinds of entrants.
The influx of players and the preference of capital have opened up a red sea market. As of the incomplete statistics of Pencil Road, there have been more than 10 financing incidents in the domestic sweeping robot industry in 2021. Enterprises that have obtained financing include Zhuimi Technology, Trifo, Wali, Yuli, Lesheng Intelligent, Yinxing Intelligent, Jihai Technology, Shunzao Technology, etc. Among them, Wali, Youli, and Jihai Technology all raised tens of millions of yuan, and Lesheng Intelligent even got 200 million yuan in financing. Although the number of financing is not as high as in 2020, the single amount is rising.
The sweeping robot market continues to heat up, but there are still some challenges in front of these players.
Stumbling blocks in the pursuit of "freedom"
The east wind of "lazy economy" will blow every once in a while.
From air purifiers, wall breaking machines, water purifiers, cooking robots, and breakfast machines, behind the popularity of these smart small appliances, each seems to have its own reasons, but in fact, they all contain the pursuit of the quality of life of Generation Z.
Daily cleaning products are a must-have item in life, and it is understandable that there is a huge market size. But why is it difficult for the sweeping robot labeled as "smart" to be accepted by the public?
After a closer look, many smart home appliances that are all the rage either overestimate the penetration space of the product, or overestimate the actual needs of users. The track mainly corresponds to C-end users. In the final analysis, consumers must speak.
An excellent sweeping robot product should have the characteristics of thorough cleaning, smart work, and convenient use. These seemingly simple demands have various problems in actual application.
Relying on technological empowerment, sweeping machines have indeed brought some convenience to life, but on related online forums, there are still many "artificial mental retardation", "sweeping robot lying in the nest waiting for me to rescue", "stuck in various unimaginable corners" Wait for negative reviews.
At present, the focus of the sweeping robot is more on the function of "dragging", but it is not easy to add the mopping function. It is necessary to insert the mopping function into the volume of the sweeping robot, increase the pressure to achieve strong cleaning, and reduce manual operations. , which poses a huge challenge to product structure, space utilization and cost control.
A low degree of product intelligence will reduce consumers' trust in the product and weaken people's desire to buy. This may be one of the reasons for the low penetration rate of sweeping robots in the home.
The introduction of technology can indeed bring earth-shaking changes to life, but it is not so mysterious. Whether it can really penetrate into the hearts of consumers under the banner of technology depends on good products in the end.
It is foreseeable that with the advent of the lazy economy, the future sweeping robot will become the standard configuration of households like washing machines and dishwashers. In the future, the concentration of the industry will further increase, the market competition will become more intense, and the market share of small and medium brands will be lost. Further compression, and brands with core technological advantages will continue to reap market dividends, so the key lies in who can seize the next wave of dividends.
Source: New Industry Insights