No. 1 in global sales, Roborock has handed over the world business card of China's intelligent manufacturing
Looking at the development of China's home appliance industry, in just a few decades, from the initial almost blank to today's saturated stock market, the continuous extension of the function of life scenes is promoting industrial upgrading to a higher place.
New demand stimulates new growth, and the clean electrical appliance industry is keen on the opportunity to change consumer demand, relying on technological innovation to fully tap the opportunities of industry market segments.
As a global leader in the smart cleaning appliance industry, Roborock has actively explored and practiced, and has built new advantages in global competition by virtue of scientific and technological innovation, industry leadership and global exploration.
March 29th. The 2024 Roborock Global Conference was held. Observer.com learned from the press conference that Roborock's sales of sweeping robots topped the world.
From ODM to OEM, from the "behind-the-scenes heroes" of star products to well-known national brands going abroad, Roborock has become an industry leader in the field of clean electrical appliances with its solid product strength and technical strength.
Looking back at Roborock's development trajectory, from achievements to paths, to "differentiated leadership" in many dimensions such as strategy, Roborock has achieved a unique story of "independent innovation" and "global leadership".
Technology Pioneer: Reshape the industry landscape with innovation
William Taylor, the author of "Disruptive Innovation", once concluded: It is not only the operating profit and scale that determine the status of the brand, but more importantly, the position in the industry change.
In the development trajectory of the global technology manufacturing industry, there is often symbiosis, co-prosperity and mutual achievement between the leading brands and the industries in which they operate: for example, Apple is to smartphones, Tesla is to new energy vehicles, and Roborock and clean appliances also have a similar relationship.
As a leader in cleaning electrical appliances, Roborock is not a "half-way monk", and since its establishment, "technology first" has always been the background color of Roborock.
Based on the in-depth insight into the field of clean electrical appliances, Roborock keenly judged that the category of clean electrical appliances has a broad growth space, and in the face of huge market opportunities, it must make comprehensive efforts in technology, quality, service, and supply chain.
This also explains why independent innovation is difficult, but Roborock still overcomes difficulties in R&D to promote brand transformation regardless of the cost.
According to the data, from 2019 to 2022, Roborock invested 193 million yuan, 263 million yuan, 441 million yuan, and 489 million yuan in R&D expenses, accounting for 4.59%, 5.80%, 7.55%, and 7.37% of revenue respectively. On the evening of March 28, the newly released 2023 financial report showed that the company's R&D investment was 619 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.97%, accounting for 7.15% of the current revenue.
In addition, the R&D team with industry competitiveness is the guarantee for Roborock to build its core competitiveness. It is understood that Roborock's core technical personnel are all technical experts with many years of R&D experience from Microsoft, Huawei, Intel, ARM, and Nokia, and have rich experience in innovation and practice in many fields such as wind, light, machinery, electricity, and artificial intelligence. As of the end of 2023, the number of R&D personnel has increased to 622, a year-on-year increase of 26.17%.
It is worth mentioning that Roborock has built an intelligent manufacturing center from a long-term perspective, built a strong ability to develop a full link of research, production, supply, marketing and service, and transformed the manufacturing link in the value chain from outsourcing processing to independent production, so as to realize the integration of "research, production and marketing", so that all links of the value chain can be closed, so as to build a high competitive barrier for the company and promote the company to achieve its long-term development goals.
Behind the technology first, Roborock has gradually improved the cleaning ability and user experience of its products from overcoming LDS technical barriers to promoting the popularization of sweepers, and then to the world's first dual-light source solid-state laser navigation and obstacle avoidance. With an increasingly complete product matrix, continuous product iteration and high-quality product performance, Roborock has established an advantage in the clean appliance market.
Aowei cloud network data shows that in 2023, the sales volume of the domestic online sweeper market will increase by 4% year-on-year (the sales volume is flat, the average price is +4%), and the share of the stone brand will increase to 24% (+3pct), corresponding to a year-on-year increase of 17% in sales, and in a single quarter, the sales volume of the online sweeper industry in 23Q4 will return to double-digit growth (+11%), with a year-on-year increase of 17%, of which the sales share of the stone brand will increase to 23%, and the sales volume will increase by 35% year-on-year, of which the sales volume will increase by 38% , the average price decreased slightly year-on-year (-2%).
Industry driver: explore new paths for development with users first
In recent years, with the development of social and economic level and the increase in people's demand for high-quality life, the consumer market has an increasing demand for clean electrical products, and the scale of the entire clean household appliance market has shown a growth trend.
However, at the same time of the rapid development of the industry, there are still undesirable phenomena such as insufficient product strength and low-price competition in the context of intensified industry competition in China's clean electrical appliance industry in the global competition.
How to be invincible in the fierce market competition? Roborock's answer is to "user-centric", dig deep into the pain points of users, continuously increase R&D investment, promote industrial upgrading, and create more and better new products that meet the needs of users.
In 2016, Roborock overcame the difficulties of LDS technology and applied it to sweepers on a large scale, promoting the technological innovation of the cleaning appliance industry, and the product penetration rate is also increasing rapidly, and the domestic sweeper market has also entered a stage of rapid growth.
In September 2017, Roborock launched its first brand product "Roborock Intelligent Sweeping Robot", which is equipped with a combination of laser + ultrasonic multi-sensor navigation + standard mopping module to solve the pain point of "fool-like collision" of traditional inertial navigation sweepers. In December of the same year, the overseas version of the stone sweeping robot was released.
In 2020, Roborock ushered in a new moment and was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. This year, Roborock launched the industry's first visual sweeping robot T7 Pro, which achieved intelligent and accurate obstacle avoidance with AI object recognition technology + binocular camera stereo vision.
At the beginning of 2021, Roborock launched Roborock T7S, which is technically equipped with 3D structured light + AI intelligent obstacle avoidance system to achieve millimeter-level high-precision obstacle avoidance and accurate ranging, and further enhance product competitiveness.
In 2023, Roborock's newly launched P10 and G20 robot vacuums use the RR Mason 10.0 algorithm to intelligently identify thresholds and further improve the ability of cleaning path planning, and the reactive AI 3.0 obstacle avoidance technology adopted by G20 can intelligently identify as many as 42 kinds of indoor ground obstacles, and the company's core technology innovation iteration has always been ahead of the industry.
Roborock not only achieves the ultimate in products, but also pays attention to promoting the evolution of service experience, builds a full-process user service system, formulates and implements service response standards that are higher than the requirements of the sales platform, and continuously promotes the improvement and improvement of product and service quality. Taking the after-sales service time as an example, when the product is still in the shelf life, users can contact the company's customer service at the entrance of any platform to apply for replacement and maintenance services. The company will arrange logistics door-to-door pick-up according to the user's needs, and complete the problem repair and send it back to the user within 48 hours after receiving the goods.
With industry-leading technical algorithms, advanced and comprehensive basic functions, and a high-standard user service system, Roborock has built a strong product force and promoted the industry to a higher level.
Trend Leader: Push China's intelligent manufacturing to the world stage
It should be pointed out that at present, the product innovation of the cleaning appliance industry has reached a bottleneck period, before the emergence of the next disruptive technology, the intensification of competition in the domestic cleaning appliance industry is inevitable, and "going to sea" has become the only choice for domestic manufacturers to find a new growth curve. Based on China's high-quality supply chain, building a global brand is also a greater journey for many high-quality companies in the future.
Guojin Securities pointed out in the research report that the penetration rate of sweepers in most countries is still at a low level, and the improvement of product strength will help the penetration rate of overseas sweeping robots to increase rapidly. On the whole, the global sweeping robot market space is about 45.44 million units/year, compared with the annual sales of 11.96 million units/year in 2022, there is still room for growth of 280%.
As the "leader" in the field of sweeping robots, Roborock is also the first to see the prospect of overseas markets. As early as 2016, when the company promoted the transformation of its own brand, the global market layout was opened simultaneously.
Seize the dividend period one step ahead, and Roborock has also achieved rapid growth in overseas markets as early as possible. From 2021 to 2023, Roborock's overseas market revenue will be 3.364 billion yuan, 3.483 billion yuan, and 4.229 billion yuan respectively, and the overseas market will gradually become the main region of revenue.
According to Moojing data and Kaiyuan Securities data, in Q1 2023, Roborock's products accounted for 48.2%, 19.0%, and 32.8% of export sales in Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, respectively, and even in the hellish U.S. market, Roborock's high-end products with a value of more than $800 have a market share of 57%, ahead of the overseas leading brand iRobot.
Benefiting from the rapid growth of overseas markets, Roborock's performance in 2023 has improved significantly. On March 28, Roborock released its 2023 annual performance report, which showed that the company achieved operating income of 8.654 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 30.55%; the total profit was 2.325 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 72.38%; The net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company was 2.051 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 73.32%.
From "going out" to "going in", now, Roborock has realized research, production, supply, marketing and service to the sea, according to statistics, the current Roborock sweeping robot products have entered the world more than now, the company's products are all over 170 countries and regions around the world, and more than 15 million families have used Roborock sweeping robots to enjoy the beautiful life brought by scientific and technological innovation. According to IDC data, in 2023, Stone will achieve the first sales volume in the Nordic market, the first sales volume in the German market, the first sales volume in the South Korean market, the first sales volume in the Turkish market, and the second sales volume in the North American market, and the first place in the world in the sales volume of sweepers.
Behind Roborock's rise to the top of global sales, Roborock has accurately grasped the growing demand for intelligent and automated cleaning solutions in the international market. In the context of the ever-changing global economic landscape, Roborock will continue to play the role of a "leader" with the vision of becoming the world's leading technology home appliance company, leading China's young technology brands to embark on a high-quality development path, and contributing more Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions on the world stage.