As an important branch of small household appliances, cleaning appliances refer to electrical appliances used to clean items and indoor environments, mainly including sweeping robots, floor scrubbers, vacuum cleaners (rod, bucket, horizontal, handheld) and mite removers, electric mops, steam mops, window cleaning robots, etc.
According to the total data pushed by Aowei Cloud Network, the retail sales of clean electrical appliances in China increased by 6.8% year-on-year to 34.4 billion yuan last year, and the retail volume fell by 0.5% year-on-year to 25.34 million units. Among them, the retail sales of sweepers were 13.7 billion yuan and the retail sales were 4.58 million units, an increase of 10% and 4% respectively; The retail sales of floor scrubbers were 12.2 billion yuan, and the retail sales were 5.05 million units, an increase of 22% and 45% respectively
Although the growth rate has slowed down in recent years, the growth rate of the clean appliance market is still much higher than the overall level of the home appliance market. With the improvement of people's living standards and the pursuit of quality of life, the penetration rate is expected to further increase in the future. In 2024, the retail sales and retail volume of cleaning appliances will reach 38.6 billion yuan and 26.31 million units, respectively, and sweeping robots and floor scrubbers will continue to be the main driving force for growth.
Joyoung's brand Shark has expanded its products such as vacuum cleaners, sweeping robots, electric mops, and hand suckers; Supor will continue to focus on cleaning categories; Xiaoxiong Electric said that it would pay attention to products such as sweeping robots. As the competition becomes increasingly fierce, the performance of the two giants in the industry has also diverged.
Last year, Ecovacs "increased revenue but not profits", with revenue of 15.502 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.16%; net profit was 612 million yuan, down 63.96% year-on-year. Among them, the sales revenue of service robots represented by Ecovacs fell by 1.49% year-on-year to 7.681 billion yuan, and the gross profit margin was 42.69%, a year-on-year decrease of 2.20 percentage points. The sales revenue of smart living appliances represented by the Timco brand increased by 5.24% year-on-year to 7.271 billion yuan, and the gross profit margin was 52.79%, a year-on-year decrease of 6.64 percentage points.
Some industry insiders pointed out that the product layout of the low-price segment of the Ecovacs brand revenue pressure sweeper is missing, and only one upgraded product X2 was released last year, with an official price of 4699 yuan, and there is no new product launched in the mainstream price segment of 3000 yuan-4000 yuan. DEEBOT T30 series products were launched this year, and the omni-channel sales exceeded 50,000 units within 15 days of listing. The Timco brand is subject to the low technical threshold of floor scrubbers, fierce competition in the industry, and frequent price wars to lower product prices and gross profits.
On the other hand, Roborock handed over a brilliant report card: last year, it achieved revenue of 8.654 billion yuan and net profit of 2.051 billion yuan, an increase of 30.55% and 73.32% year-on-year respectively. The revenue is only half that of Ecovacs, but the net profit generated is three times that of the latter. The sales volume of smart sweepers reached 2.5952 million units, a year-on-year increase of 15.54%.
Behind the rapid development, it is inseparable from continuous R&D investment. As the first company in the world to apply LiDAR navigation technology and related algorithms to the field of sweeping robots on a large scale, Roborock has also successively launched pioneering technologies such as visual maps, binocular vision obstacle avoidance, integrated sweeping and mopping, and high-frequency vibration mopping. Last year, R&D expenses reached 619 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.69%; The proportion of operating income reached 7.15%, ranking in the forefront of the industry. Over the past ten years, it has invested more than 1.9 billion yuan, and has obtained a total of 2,435 intellectual property rights by the end of 2023.
Last year, Roborock's overseas revenue accounted for nearly half, a year-on-year increase of 21.42% to 4.23 billion yuan. It is worth mentioning that the gross profit margin in the overseas market reached 61.65%, 12 percentage points higher than the domestic market. This is mainly due to the active implementation of the "going out" strategy, the establishment of overseas companies in the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, South Korea and other places. Up to now, its sweeping robot products have entered more than 15 million households in more than 170 countries and regions around the world, with more than one million daily active users.
According to Euromonitor International's research data, Roborock ranks first in the world in terms of sales of sweeping robots, and its market share in more than 14 countries and regions ranks among the top three. The sales volume in the Nordics, Germany, and South Korea markets ranked first, the sales volume in the Turkish market ranked first, and the sales volume in the North American market ranked second.
Roborock's high-end products (with a price of more than $800) have a market share of 57% in the United States, leaving behind iRobot, the originator of sweeping robots. The company has opened online brand stores on mainstream platforms such as Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, Walmart, etc., and entered the offline physical chain retail channel for the first time last year, entering more than 180 Target stores, and plans to enter more than 1,000 this year.