In 2016, Zuckerberg showed a video about his own home robot smart butler, which can control the switch of electrical appliances, play music according to preferences, bake bread regularly, and even recognize visitors at the door, and even named Jarvis, which is the same name as Iron Man's AI butler.
The service robots that Zuckerberg could only use at that time have now entered thousands of households, and the initial image of this industry first began with sweeping robots that made people "housework free".
Coworth's 2021 earnings report, which has been working in the field of service robots for many years, continues to attract its attention among a number of companies.
On April 23, 2022, Coworth Group handed over its own performance, 2021 revenue reached 13.086 billion, an increase of 80.9% year-on-year, comprehensive gross profit margin reached 51.41%, net profit reached 2.01 billion, an increase of 213.51%, in the context of commodity inflation, manufacturing cost pressure, it is not easy to achieve such results.
With this article we will answer the following three questions:
1, What is the core of competition in the service robot industry?
2, What does the imagination space of this industry come from?
3. What is the future of Coworth?
01
R&D strength is the first productive force
The original intention of the birth of the sweeping robot is to liberate people from the activity of sweeping the floor, so that people can get rid of tedious, repetitive, tedious housework, and avoid family conflicts.
So the first sweeping robots focused on how to clean the ground, but Cobos did not think so, making a "high-level broom" is not Cobos's goal, their focus, on the robot.
This concept sounds simple, but what is actually implied is that Coworth intends to effectively solve people's daily life troubles through robotics, not just to help sweep the ground.
And the robot is not so easy to do, even if you take the sweeping robot for example, it needs SLAM algorithm and sensors, the sensor is also divided into three types: gyroscope, laser, camera, only the software and hardware are complete to make the sweeping robot adapt to the changing working environment.
The competition of sweeping robots is essentially the competition of software and hardware, and the competition of technology. In this regard, Coworth has done a very good job, is one of the few domestic sweeping robot manufacturers that can develop software and hardware at the same time, and has strong research and development strength.
According to the financial report, in 2021, Coworth Group invested 549 million yuan in research and development, an increase of 62.45% year-on-year, with 1197 R&D personnel, accounting for 15.24% of the company's overall number, and the huge investment in research and development also brought huge returns to the company, as of the end of 2021, Coworth's own patents have reached 1202.
The company adheres to self-research on many core technologies such as sensors, algorithms, artificial intelligence and environmental perception, and has become the company with the highest self-research rate in the industry. In terms of hardware, the independent industrial chain of core accessories also helps Coworth to achieve the fastest response speed when it comes to product upgrade iterations.
After the combination of software and hardware, the overall view, the sweeping robot system is mainly divided into four: navigation, cleaning, endurance, and interaction. Among them, cleanliness is the basic performance, and the excellent performance of the automatic driving level computing chip, the millimeter-level recognition accuracy, the endurance of nearly 2 hours, etc. have built the excellent basic performance of the Coworth sweeping robot.
The most important human-computer interaction is based on the basic performance of cleaning, which is also one of the strengths of Coworth.
In terms of human-computer interaction, the combination of APP and voice interaction assistant YIKO makes all kinds of service robots have more convenient functions and gameplay. For example, Coworth's Dibao X1 can form a 3D floor plan in the user APP, and is equipped with a 960P starlight camera, so that users can use the APP to designate specific key areas to clean, or interact with pets in real time. Qinbao, window treasure and other products are also fully upgraded in terms of interaction, and contactless operation can be completely realized through APP and voice.
Naturally, with the blessing of these research and development strengths, it is inevitable that Coworth will achieve good results, in 2021, Cobos's sweeping robot has achieved a volume and price increase, and the global shipment volume has reached 3.404 million units, an increase of 10.81% year-on-year, and the average price has reached 1963 yuan, an increase of 43.67% year-on-year, so the sales revenue reached 6.71 billion yuan, an increase of 58.42% year-on-year, which is very outstanding.
But here's a key question: How long does that kind of performance last for a good business? How long is this track?
02
Manpower is in short supply, and robot substitution is imperative
The service robot track to which the sweeping robot belongs is really much broader than we thought.
Service robots were created to replace humans, freeing them from repetitive, bloated labor, and increasing productivity. In modern society, due to the aging of the population structure and the rising cost of labor, service robots have been awarded a more important mission.
First of all, with the gradual decline in the birth rate of the mainland population, the demographic dividend has long been gone, especially in large cities, the proportion of the elderly population is constantly increasing, the demand for services is getting heavier and heavier, and the human resources that can be met are getting less and less, and the cost of labor is rising all the way, and one of the ways to replace it is to introduce robots.
With the adjustment of the age structure of Chinese population, the demand gap will only grow, and the next need to see if supply can meet this demand.
From the intelligence point of view, the original sweeping robot may only be used for sweeping, and sweeping may not be done well, either not sweeping the whole house or stubborn stains can not be cleaned, but these are already in the past tense. The latest sweeping robots, both in terms of cleaning ability and intelligence, are far beyond the imagination of those of us who have not been exposed to sweeping robots.
Today's home service robots continue to integrate a series of new technologies such as intelligent voice, processor, AI algorithm, communication, big data, and the Internet of Things, which can achieve a considerable degree of autonomy, adaptability, and intelligence, of which ai computing power has increased by 16 times on the Dibao X1 family, and has reached the level of automatic driving computing power.
The maturity of this technology has also broadened the sales of service robots and thus driven the entire industrial chain, with the increase in the number of service robots can trigger the scale effect of the entire industry, thereby reducing production costs, simply put, the previous home service robots are customized versions, and now it is mass production.
High-end products are superimposed on a perfect supply chain to achieve mass production, successfully triggering the flywheel effect of the industry, that is, the needs of customers are continuously met, and the high demand continues to drive the growth of sales.
Demand is growing, supply can keep up, and the market is naturally not small. 2019-2020 household service robots officially produced a flywheel effect, the growth rate soared, is expected to remain at a high level to drive the expansion of the entire industry, institutions expect that in 2023 China's service robot sales will reach 61.35 billion yuan. As a leader, Coworth will first benefit from the dividends brought by the expansion of the industry.
03
China's robots go global
Coworth's new brand mission is "Let robots serve everyone". Coworth dares to put forward such a grand brand mission is based on its deep accumulation of nearly 20 years of intelligent technologies such as hardware, sensors, algorithms and AI related to service robots, and the cost of core links of Coworth has increased from less than 10% in the past to more than 40% today.
At the same time, Coworth has been actively involved in the formulation of service robot industry standards, has been 3 international standardization working groups registered expert units, and has always led the industry in the standardization of domestic and international industries.
From the perspective of leading the progress and development of the industry, Coworth is the earliest household service robot brand in China that has both LDS-SLAM and V-SLAM dual navigation technology routes; in 2019, After The launch of AIVI artificial intelligence and visual recognition technology, Cobos is the first brand in the industry to apply artificial intelligence technology to sweeping robot products; in 2020, Coworth became the earliest enterprise in the industry to apply dToF technology to the mapping and navigation of home service robots. And for the first time, 3D structured light technology is applied to home service robot products.
By 2021, Coworth will launch AIVI 3D technology for the first time on the Dibao X1 series. The product has achieved breakthroughs in functionality, intelligence and interactivity, and has been praised by the industry as an epoch-making product in the service robot industry, which truly defines the era of service robot 3.0 and points out the direction for the future evolution of service robot products. At present, the online market share of Coworth's products has reached 43.5%, and the offline market share has reached 86.6%.
As a representative enterprise of domestic service robots, Coworth has established a perfect service robot matrix to achieve the integration of home and commerce, and the new brand mission is to serve every individual in the process of human development as the primary consideration, defining the characteristics of the real service robot service everyone.
After defining China's service robot industry, the next step is to face the test of the global market.
In 2021, Google and Kantar jointly released China's Top 50 Global Brands, and Coworth ranked 24th as the only sweeping robot company.
In the same year, Cobos overseas business also got good results, Cobos overseas mainly concentrated in the United States, Japan, Germany, Australia and other developed countries, business throughout the world 145 countries. In 2021, the overseas business income of Cobos reached 4.718 billion, of which the overseas business income of the Cobos brand increased by 60.26% year-on-year, and the overseas income accounted for nearly one-third of the total revenue, which is likely to take over the banner of domestic business and become the second curve of Coworth's development.
The reason for this achievement is that Coworth's unusual strategy of going to sea.
Mainland enterprises going to sea are step by step, first in the developing countries to hone, after winning the market and then step by step to improve their own products before going to the developed countries to be tested, this is a strategy of gradually rising difficulty, but no strategy is perfect, such products may be able to meet the insufficient competition in the developing regions, but in the fully competitive developed areas may not necessarily be effective.
Cobos, on the other hand, has promoted products to developed regions at the beginning, taking the lead in entering mature developed markets such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, where although competition is fierce, per capita consumption in these areas is high, and competitor technology is mature, which is a kind of exercise for Coworth.
If Coworth has learned anything in these places, it is to realize that only companies that have no shortcomings in research, production and marketing can gain a foothold in the global market.
This has also shaped the entrepreneurial spirit of Cobos, that is, to let robots serve everyone, or to let Chinese robots serve people around the world.
[1] Coworth annual results announcements and financial statements
[2] It is still a boom track, and it can be expected to cross the product gap Huatai Securities
[3] Sweeping robot companies' official websites
[4] At the end of the small appliance is the sweeping robot Tokawa Research Institute
[5] The company's in-depth research: the dual brands continue to exert force, and the future of clean electrical appliances and intelligent manufacturing leaders can be expected Guohai Securities