It is said that Anker has entered a new track, and Xiaomi’s former technical director is in charge

"Hello, your meal has been delivered, please enjoy it", open the door, and you will see that the one delivering your takeaway food is a robot with a cute appearance. The "contactless" concept has been applied to the service industry in recent years, and all this is thanks to the advent of the robot era.

The times have changed, and now there is a group of big sellers who are eager to take advantage of the trend and move forward in the high-threshold track of robotics.

Xiaomi’s former technical director joins Anker Innovations

Not long ago , a piece of news was widely circulated in the industry that Anker Innovations, a major consumer electronics company , has formed an embodied robot team . The team leader came from a major mobile phone manufacturer and reports directly to Zhu Fanghao, vice president of Anker Innovations and president of Zhixin Technology.

The person in charge is Liu Fang from Xiaomi.

Earlier, Liu Fang worked in Google China's search business department; afterwards, he joined Xiaomi and was one of Xiaomi's earliest employees. He served as the head of Xiaomi's MIUI life yellow pages business, the technical director of Xiaomi Auto's autonomous driving products, and the head of mass production .

In fact, as early as July 2023, Anker Innovations poached a technical expert in the intelligent driving industry, intending to officially launch this business. At that time, Liu Langgechuan, the former head of autonomous driving AI at Xiaopeng, joined Anker Innovations to be responsible for the research and development of embodied intelligence such as robots and large models . However, according to insiders, since joining Anker Innovations, the embodied robot business has been in the exploratory stage and no special team has been formed . Liu Langgechuan is still in charge of Anker Innovations' original intelligent businesses such as sweeping robots and AIoT , and failed to proceed as planned, so he only worked for a few months .

The rumors about the official establishment of the relevant team can also be seen from its recruitment.

The recruitment platform shows that Anker Innovations is recruiting a large number of positions related to robots, such as motion control algorithm engineers, robot system development engineers , robot sensor software engineers , hardware engineers, smart hardware product managers (robots) , visual perception algorithm engineers , ontology engineers, Unity engineers, embodied intelligence algorithm engineers , etc.

It can be seen that Anker Innovations has been continuously expanding its product category layout, moving from shallow waters to deep seas, and in recent years has increased its investment in the smart and robotics tracks .

After raising 2.5 billion yuan in 2020, Anker Innovations established 27 product teams, responsible for energy storage, 3D printing , smart security, smart cleaning, lawn mower robots , etc. However, perhaps because there were too many categories and it was difficult to refine them, the road to lawn mower robots failed.

It is reported that Anker Innovations once formed a team of nearly 60 people to be responsible for the lawn mowing robot track . However, after more than a year of investment , the project made no progress and was eventually disbanded .

Since then, Anker Innovations has focused more on the research and development of robots in the field of smart cleaning, and its eufy has already gained a foothold overseas.

On Amazon, eufy's robot vacuum cleaners have performed well in sales. Taking a single listing as an example, it has received 66,700 reviews since its launch, with sales exceeding 2,000 units in October, ranking third in Amazon's " Robotic Vacuums " category BS list , surpassing leading overseas brands of robot vacuum cleaners such as roborock and dreame .

As the second largest revenue source brand under Anker Innovations, eufy continues to deepen its development and launch cleaning robot products that meet user needs, such as the eufy X10 Pro Omni, which was launched in February and saw a surge in sales on Amazon PD in July; in March, it also launched the eufy S1 Pro all-purpose floor cleaning robot.

It's not just Anker Innovations. There are many other big sellers in the overseas market that have already entered the robotics market and are even continuing to mature their businesses.

Daotong Technology established a wholly-owned robotics subsidiary

On November 19, Yien.com discovered that Daotong Technology had established a new robotics company whose business involves AI.

According to Qichacha data, Shenzhen Daohetongtai Robot Co., Ltd. is headed by Du Ruoyang , with a registered capital of 10 million yuan. Its business scope includes the research and development and sales of intelligent robots, the manufacturing and sales of service consumer robots, the manufacturing and sales of intelligent unmanned aerial vehicles, the development of basic artificial intelligence software, and the manufacturing and sales of security equipment .

From the perspective of the controlling shareholder, Daotong Technology holds 100% of the capital contribution , which means that this is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daotong Technology.

This is not the first time that Daotong Technology has invested in establishing a robotics intelligence company this year.

As early as June, its controlled Shenzhen Saifang Technology Co., Ltd. established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Shenzhen Saifang Hehui Software Development Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 1 million yuan. Its business scope includes artificial intelligence application software development; artificial intelligence basic software development; artificial intelligence general application systems, etc.

As early as 2014, Daotong Technology established Daotong Intelligence, focusing on the development of drone business . In 2017, due to the need for a large amount of R&D funds and investors' pessimism about this business, Li Hongjing , the actual controller of Daotong Technology , sold 17% of the shares of Daotong Technology and raised about 600 million yuan for investment. In the same year , Daotong Intelligence was separated from Daotong Technology and operated independently.

In 2020 , Daotong Intelligent launched two products that greatly boosted sales , namely the EVO II, an 8K folding aerial photography drone with omnidirectional obstacle avoidance capabilities, and the Daotong Arowana Standard, a tilt-rotor fixed-wing drone.

The frequent establishment of subsidiaries with artificial intelligence businesses this year may have nothing to do with the drone business, but what is certain is that Daotong Technology has been pursuing the improvement of its intelligent software and hardware research and development capabilities. As of the first half of this year, Daotong Technology has 1,683 patents.

Avoiding the fierce competition in the red ocean , since its establishment in 2004, Daotong Technology has been focusing on the niche auto parts track . With comprehensive automotive diagnosis, TPMS, ADAS intelligent detection and calibration, and related software cloud services as its product matrix, Daotong Technology's annual revenue has reached billions.

In the third quarter of this year alone , Daotong Technology's revenue was 962 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.72%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company reached 155 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 99.61%; the non-net profit was 154 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 97.37%.

In the past nine months of 2024, its revenue has reached 2.804 billion yuan, an increase of 28.07% from 2.190 billion yuan in the same period last year; its net profit reached 541 million yuan, an increase of 103.08% year-on-year, doubling its growth.

Daotong Technology has opened up the overseas auto parts market with specific products such as DC & AC charging piles, comprehensive diagnostic products for passenger cars & commercial vehicles, tire pressure sensors, ADAS intelligent detection and calibration tools. In recent years , it has also laid out digital energy business , continuously reduced costs and increased efficiency to improve profitability, and started a second growth curve.

Last year , ChatGPT once again stirred up the wave of artificial intelligence. A large number of overseas enterprises and new startups were eager to make a big move, especially the investment and financing news of lawn mowing robot track continued to come, but the high threshold of the track made many entrants "die halfway", and there is still a long way to go for intelligentization...

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