The net profit of the top sellers plummeted! The hot track is getting colder

As people's requirements for quality of life improve and technology advances , smart cleaning appliances are becoming more and more popular, and sweeping robots have become the new favorite of consumers. In recent years, the sweeping robot market has experienced rapid growth.

However, in recent months, the growth of the robot vacuum cleaner market has begun to slow down.

As the cold weather arrives, Stone Technology's profits drop sharply in the third quarter

Recently, Stone Technology released its third-quarter 2022 financial report.

Data shows that Stone Technology 's revenue in the third quarter was 1.469 billion yuan, down 0.65% from the same period last year ; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 238 million yuan, down 34.54% year-on-year ; the non-net profit attributable to shareholders was 270 million yuan, down 15.29% year-on-year .

Roborock Technology 's revenue and net profit both declined in the third quarter, especially the decline in net profit was very large. This makes people wonder whether the sweeping robot market has entered winter overnight?

Regarding the decline in profits, Stone Technology stated in the announcement that the company's sales growth slowed down as the third quarter of this year entered the off-season. Due to the economic downturn in Europe and weak market demand, Stone Technology's overseas revenue was directly affected by the European market. At the same time, the increase in forward exchange locks and sales expenses put a certain amount of pressure on the company's profits .

Although Stone Technology 's sales in the European market have declined significantly , which has had a significant impact on its overall revenue , its sales growth in the Asia-Pacific region and North America is still relatively stable .

Roborock Technology ( full name Beijing Roborock Century Technology Co., Ltd.) was established in July 2014. It is an ecological chain company of Xiaomi . Its main business is the design, research and development, production (realized by commissioned processing) and sales of household smart cleaning robots and other smart appliances . Its main products include smart sweeping robots, handheld vacuum cleaners, commercial cleaning robots, etc.

Stone Technology received investment from Xiaomi in the early stage of its establishment. It initially started out by relying on Xiaomi's OEM. In 2016, it joined the Xiaomi ecosystem. With the support of huge traffic, its revenue exceeded the 1 billion mark in just one year. Since then, its performance has been rising all the way . The company has been listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board in February 2020.

Roborock Technology's business covers more than 100 countries and regions around the world . Its products are mainly sold in the US, Europe and Southeast Asian markets through platforms such as Amazon and its own website. With its high cost-performance ratio, it has gained a large number of loyal fans overseas. Roborock Technology has many top-ranked best-selling products on Amazon, most of which are priced between US$300 and US$600.

Roborock Technology started out with sweeping robots and was criticized by the outside world for its single product line. However, Roborock Technology has expanded into multiple product lines, such as handheld vacuum cleaners and commercial cleaning robots. Its sales channels have also expanded to the B2C and B2B markets , making for a diversified layout.

The profits of “top players” have declined and their market value has plummeted!

In recent years, with the increasingly fierce competition in the smart cleaning robot industry, not only large companies have intensified their market competition, such as Ecovacs and Xiaomi in the domestic market, but also brands such as iRobot and Anker's home furnishing brand eufy on the overseas Amazon platform, and small and medium-sized companies are also constantly joining this industry.

However, affected by the market environment, the profits of many leading companies in the smart cleaning robot industry have declined to varying degrees.

According to the announcement released by Ecovacs , its net profit in the third quarter was 245 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 48.94%.

In the announcement, Ecovacs stated that the main reason for the decline in net profit was the impact of the market environment , the slowdown in consumption growth and the decline in market input-output .

Moreover, in recent years, Ecovacs has lost its popularity in the capital market . Ecovacs previously created a historical high share price of 252.71 yuan per share , but in the past year and a half, the share price has continued to fall , shrinking by more than half, and the market value is less than one-third of the peak , with a market value evaporation of more than 100 billion yuan.

In the capital market, Stone Technology is facing the same dilemma as Ecovacs. In June 2021, Stone Technology's stock price soared to 1,494.99 yuan per share, becoming the highest-priced stock on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, but Stone Technology's current market value is also facing a substantial shrinkage.

In addition to Ecovacs and Stone Technology, the revenue of Yunjing Intelligent, a leading domestic company, has also declined this year. Yunjing Intelligent's revenue in 2019-2021 was 20 million yuan, 800 million yuan , and 2 billion yuan, respectively, but its sales in the first half of this year were only 350 million yuan, a decrease of 12.9% compared with the first half of last year , showing negative growth .

In order to cope with the market difficulties, leading companies in various smart cleaning robots began to adjust their operations. Among them, Stone Technology began to get involved in the car manufacturing business, Ecovacs adjusted its commercial cleaning robot team, and Yunjing Intelligent, which had relatively weak business accumulation, carried out structural adjustments.

According to the latest market research data, in the first half of this year, the sales of sweeping robots reached 5.73 billion yuan , an increase of only 9 % compared with the same period last year . The sales volume in the same period was 2.01 million units , a decrease of 28.3 %.

In recent years, the intelligent cleaning robot market has experienced rapid development, attracting many brands to enter the market, and market competition has become increasingly fierce. In terms of products, homogeneity is very obvious, and functional innovation is very insufficient. The reason for this market situation is that the technical levels of various companies are uneven, and they do not have their own unique advantages in products , making it difficult to make differentiated products . In the long run, these companies are very likely to be eliminated as long-term market competitors.

Some industry insiders believe that another reason for the current market downturn is that leading companies are competing to develop high-end models, which has reduced the market acceptance of low-end models. In addition, the average price of the currently popular smart cleaning robots is generally high, which will affect some consumer groups from placing orders, resulting in a decline in sales in the entire market.

However, although the current market competition for smart cleaning robots is intensifying and the industry is under certain growth pressure, the market demand for products is still very large. It is estimated that by 2025 , the global market size of smart cleaning robots will reach US$7.5 billion and the penetration rate will reach 29%.

In the future, smart cleaning robots must have technological breakthroughs, improve consumers' experience in product functions, and promote models at different price points to meet the needs of different consumer groups.

Because the technical requirements of intelligent cleaning robots are very high, mainly involving autonomous navigation design positioning, path planning algorithms and sensor technology , etc. This requires companies to continuously carry out product research and development and launch innovative products.

Moreover, smart products are generally updated very quickly. In order to promote brand awareness and enhance market position, smart cleaning robot products need to be combined with a variety of emerging technologies to meet consumer needs in different application scenarios .

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