Text丨Produced by Li Denghua丨Niudaocaijing) The crazy reduction of shareholders of Stone Technology continues. On June 21, Stone Technology issued an announcement disclosing the results of the reduction of shareholders, directors, supervisors and senior management. According to th

Text by Li Denghua
Produced by Niudaocaijing

The crazy reduction of shareholders of Stone Technology continues.

On June 21, Stone Technology issued an announcement disclosing the results of the reduction of shareholders, directors, supervisors and senior management. According to the announcement, as of June 17, Stone Times had reduced its holdings by 570,000 shares through centralized bidding, accounting for 0.86% of the total share capital of Stone Technology; Gaorong had reduced its holdings by a total of 360,000 shares through centralized bidding, accounting for 0.86% of the total share capital of Stone Technology. 0.54%.

Among them, Stone Age is the employee stock-holding platform of Stone Technology. Stone’s second person Mao Guohua had previously completed the management’s largest reduction of through Stone Age, reducing its holdings of 938,100 shares at a price of 1020.91 yuan/share, this reduction of holdings was directly realized by 958 million yuan.

In addition, the huge lifting of the ban on Shunwei, which the market had previously worried about in , has also been implemented in . On May 27, Stone Technology announced that Shunwei plans to reduce its holdings by no more than 4 million shares. It is worth noting that Shunwei plans to reduce its holdings accounting for about 68% of the shares that have been lifted. On April 1, Shunwei lifted 5.93 million shares.

Shunwei completed the reduction of 500,000 shares in just half a month during the first round of lifting the ban on Stone Technology in 2021, cashing out 550 million yuan. The stocks in this reduction plan were 8 of the stocks that were lifted in the first round. times.

1, sell-off reduction, market pressure

All parties’ sell-off reduction put pressure on Stone Technology stocks. From June 2021 to now, Stone Technology's stock has fallen from the highest point of nearly 1,500 yuan per share to more than 600 yuan per share, and once fell to the lowest point of 466 yuan per share in March 2022.

Stone Technology’s first-round reduction list includes early investors, employee stock ownership platforms, Lei Jun, series Xiaomi Heshun as core investors, and the company’s directors, supervisors and senior management.

In February 2021, the unlocked shares of Shitou Technology expired. The lifting of a large number of restricted shares will put pressure on the stock price. Shareholders who are optimistic about the long-term value of the company will generally consider delaying the sale or reducing the speed of shareholding reduction.

Among them, the most eye-catching is the reduction of holdings by directors and senior executives of Xiaomi and Stone Technology.

In the first round of shareholding reduction of Shunwei Capital , it took only half a month to complete the reduction plan, with a total reduction of 500,000 shares and a total reduction amount of 549 million yuan.

In addition to Shunwei Capital, Tianjin Jinmi, which is also owned by Lei Jun, is also reducing its holdings.

In the first round of reduction of Stone Technology, Tianjin Jinmi sold 1.33 million shares of Stone Technology, accounting for 2% of the total share capital. After the completion of the reduction, the shareholding ratio was 6.89%. When

was listed, Shunwei Capital and Jinmi Investment controlled by Lei Jun held a total of 24.7% of the shares. They were the largest shareholders besides founder Changjing . After the IPO dilution, they accounted for 18.53%. As of the end of the third quarter of last year, Shunwei Capital and Jinmi Investment held a cumulative shareholding of 15.75%. In February this year, it was disclosed that Jinmi Investment planned to continue to reduce its holdings by 2%. Upon completion, the shareholding will further drop to 13.75%.

In addition to being affected by normal market fluctuations, Stone Technology shareholders' reckless and "killing the goose to get the eggs" reduction of holdings has also had an impact on the market.

How can market investors hold on to a company that even investors and even the founding team are stepping up to sell off?

On the evening of February 22, 2021, Stone Technology issued a shareholding reduction announcement stating that Stone Age, Dingdi, Gaorong, Qiming, Shunwei, Tianjin Jinmi, company directors and supervisors Gao Mao Guohua, Wu Zhen, Wan Yunpeng, Zhang Zhichun and other 10 shareholders plan to reduce their holdings of the company's shares to a total of no more than 7.3975 million shares, accounting for no more than 11.10% of the company's total share capital.

Stone Technology’s series of reductions shocked the market at four points.

One is that time is tight. After Stone Technology was listed for one year and just passed the lifting period, various companies stepped up their efforts to reduce their holdings. Shunwei Capital even completed the first round of reductions in half a month, completely ignoring the impact of market sentiment on the company's stock price.

Second, the quota is high. Stone Technology’s first round of shareholding reduction accounted for 7.3975 million shares of the company, accounting for 11% of the total share capital.

Third, the characters are core enough. ranged from ordinary investors to core investors such as and Xiaomi , to Mao Guohua, one of the founders, to all senior executives such as Dong and Senior Supervisors. Except for Changjing Stone Technology, all participants in the development process are reducing their holdings, such as I’m afraid I’m going to be slow to carve up a piece of the cake.

Fourth, the food and appearance are ugly. The massive lifting of the ban on would have had an impact on investor confidence. On the day the ban was lifted, the stock price of Stone Technology plunged by 713%. However, the original shareholders continued to reduce their holdings despite market sentiment, which also caused the stock price of Stone Technology to fall further.

However, at the beginning of the listing, Changjing once stated through an internal letter: " we should be bearish on the listing and forget about the stock price. " Now I don't know how to read this sentence?

2, love and breakup

In September 2021, Stone Technology bought a two-story building next to the Zhuxinzhuang subway station in Changping, Beijing, and the Stone Technology brand has been hung on the roof of the building.

is less than 500 meters to the north and is the Xiaomi Smart Industrial Park, the third park established by Xiaomi in Beijing.

It seems ironic that the two office buildings are now located next to each other.

The two were once intimate. Xiaomi used to be an investor and important sales channel of Roborock Technology. In the early days of the latter’s establishment, the sweeping robots of Roborock Technology were mainly sold through the channels of the former. Regardless of Xiaomi’s initial channel support and the brand endorsement of , Roborock Technology’s sweeping robots Can it still sell well?

Now Stone Technology has become a "rebel", and together with Huami has become a "witness" to the cracks in Xiaomi's ecological chain.

Stone Technology is decoupled from Mijia at the product level, echoing the crazy reduction of Lei Jun’s holdings.

The relationship between Roborock Technology and Xiaomi changed subtly. In September 2017, Roborock Technology launched the first intelligent sweeping robot named after Roborock.

Relying on Xiaomi’s reputation and channels, Xiaomi ecological chain companies basically had no worries about sales in the early days, and the same can be said for Stone.

Stone Technology believes that it relies heavily on Xiaomi channels, but at the same time, Xiaomi also brought sales to it during this period.

From 2016 to 2018, the sales of Roborock Technology’s sweeping robots have been rising, with revenue of 183 million yuan, 1.119 billion yuan, and 3.051 billion yuan respectively. The prospectus mentioned that the revenue obtained from Mijia customized brand products Roborock Technology accounted for The proportions of revenue are 98.58%, 88.36%, and 47.16%.

The problem of Roborock Technology’s reliance on Xiaomi can be viewed from two different angles. In the prospectus, Roborock Technology listed ten risks related to Xiaomi, from sales channels to replacement of foundries, patents, gross profits, etc. The later the period, the more Roborock regarded Xiaomi as a stumbling block on its own development.

But at the same time, Stone Technology must understand that all these risks were the biggest advantages of Stone Technology in the first three years of its establishment from 2014 to 2016.

At that time, domestic sweeping robots were in their early stages. If it weren’t for Xiaomi’s strong brand endorsement, it would be hard to say that Roborock Technology alone would be able to make good products and educate the market well at that time.

What Stone Technology is talking about so far is the glorious record of 100% positive reviews from users when Xiaomi launched the first batch of sweeping robots.

Lei Jun is one of the key players in Stone Technology. In the eyes of Chang Jing, the founder of Stone Technology, “Lei is always a good leader.”

In fact, Xiaomi’s investment in Stone is very early. Later reports mentioned that when Xiaomi’s investors came to inspect, Roborock’s prototypes were still “smashy,” and the development progress of Roborock Technology was delayed again and again.

In the autumn of 2016, Mijia sweeping robot was released, which was manufactured by Stone Technology.

From June 2014 to August 2016, Roborock Technology spent two years developing and producing a sweeping robot. This should be the best period for the relationship between Roborock Technology and Xiaomi. Until September 2017, Roborock Technology launched its own brand of sweeping robot.

However, after 2017, Roborock Technology no longer wanted to OEM for Xiaomi and began to take the route of its own brand.

Stone Technology wants to build its own brand of sweeping robots for two reasons.

One is that Chang Jing mentioned that he does not want to OEM for Xiaomi all the time, and the other is the low gross profit of Xiaomi ecological chain companies that are strictly restricted by Lei Jun.

"De-rice" has become the key direction of Stone Technology.

The revenue structure of Stone Technology has changed in 2019, and the proportion of self-owned brand revenue has increased significantly. From 2019 to the first half of 2021, the sales of Stone Technology’s own brands accounted for 65.73%, 70.72% and 98.23% respectively.

The proportion of private brands has increased. The most obvious benefit is the increase in gross profit margin. The gross profit margin of Xiaomi robots manufactured by Stone Technology has been below 20%. With the growth of private brand sales, the gross profit margin of Stone Technology has increased from 2016. increased from 19.21% to 51.32% in 2020.

But at the same time, Stone Technology also bears the price of breaking away from Xiaomi.

The most direct thing is that without Xiaomi’s channels, Stone Technology’s marketing expenses have soared.

While the gross profit margin is increasing, the elimination of Xiaomi has also gradually increased the sales cost of Roborock Technology. In the first three quarters of 2021, Stone Technology’s marketing expenses reached 513 million, accounting for 13.4% of total revenue, an increase of 39.4% over the same period last year.

3. Meeting on the battlefield and becoming rivals

Today’s Roborock Technology and Xiaomi are standing on the same battlefield and are each other’s rivals.

But as far as the sweeping robot market is concerned, the competition is more intense.

One is that overall sales are declining. According to data from Aowei Cloud, the online sales volume of the industry in the fourth quarter of 2021 decreased by 19.3% year-on-year, and the online sales volume of the sweeping machine industry decreased by 10.7% year-on-year in 2021.

In addition, the new and old opponents of bring a lot of pressure to Shitou.

According to the latest data from Aowei Cloud, the online market retail share of Roborock sweeping robot has surpassed Xiaomi, ranking third in the industry. It is preceded by old rival Ecovacs and new rival Cloud Whale. Cloud Whale's first sweeping robot was launched in 2019, and it has surpassed Roborock Technology and Xiaomi to rank second in terms of retail share in the online market.

Xiaomi’s sweeping robot has also become a new opponent for Roborock Technology. After the first-generation sweeper, Roborock developed a handheld vacuum cleaner for Xiaomi. Currently, these two products are still OEM-produced by Mijia, but Roborock has not developed an integrated sweeping and mopping product for Xiaomi. Xiaomi has fostered new ecological chain companies , Yunmi and Zhuimi. In the second half of 2019, it launched two Mijia sweepers that integrate sweeping and mopping.

Nowadays, Xiaomi Home mainly promotes the sweeping robot series Chai Mi, which was invested by Xiaomi and Shunwei in April 2018.

In addition to sweeping robots, Chang Jing and Lei Jun "step into the same river" in the field of car manufacturing.

On the evening of March 30, 2021, Xiaomi Group issued an announcement officially announcing the construction of a car. The initial investment is 10 billion yuan, and the investment is expected to be 10 billion US dollars (approximately 65.7 billion yuan) in the next 10 years. CEO of Xiaomi Group Guan Leijun will concurrently serve as the CEO of the smart electric vehicle business.

At the same time, Roborock Technology has also entered the field of car manufacturing.

Changjing established Shanghai Luoke Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. on January 8, 2021, and as early as the beginning of 2021, it was reported that Yan Feng, the original WM Motor CTO, had joined.

Current public information shows that Luo Ke Automobile’s first car is positioned to compete with the Mercedes-Benz G series off-road models. It hopes to use range extension technology to achieve a single range of more than 1,000 kilometers. Chang Jing serves as the chairman of Luoke Automobile and completed a US$100 million financing at the end of 2021. The lead investor was Tencent Group , and the investment institution Sequoia also participated in the investment.

On April 29, it was reported that Luo Ke Automobile had received approximately US$200 million in Series D financing from well-known institutions such as Coatue Manaqement, Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital .

In addition, it is reported that Changjing is no longer involved in the daily operations of Stone Technology, and his work focuses on automotive products. Changjing denied this statement in a column and stated that building a car is a personal preference and investment.

The new force is considered to be a 20 billion yuan project, and even Xiaomi has been questioned.

For Changjing, although he has the experience and endorsement of a listed star company like Stone Technology, Li Bin , Li Xiang, Xiaopeng , or Lei Jun, etc. in the industry, which one does not have rich business experience , but still can't avoid the pitfalls of building a car. In comparison, Changjing's advantages are not so obvious.

The key thing is that this time, Changjing cannot have the support of Xiaomi like Stone Technology did in the early days of starting a business.

ranged from ordinary investors to core investors such as and Xiaomi , to Mao Guohua, one of the founders, to all senior executives such as Dong and Senior Supervisors. Except for Changjing Stone Technology, all participants in the development process are reducing their holdings, such as I’m afraid I’m going to be slow to carve up a piece of the cake.

Fourth, the food and appearance are ugly. The massive lifting of the ban on would have had an impact on investor confidence. On the day the ban was lifted, the stock price of Stone Technology plunged by 713%. However, the original shareholders continued to reduce their holdings despite market sentiment, which also caused the stock price of Stone Technology to fall further.

However, at the beginning of the listing, Changjing once stated through an internal letter: " we should be bearish on the listing and forget about the stock price. " Now I don't know how to read this sentence?

2, love and breakup

In September 2021, Stone Technology bought a two-story building next to the Zhuxinzhuang subway station in Changping, Beijing, and the Stone Technology brand has been hung on the roof of the building.

is less than 500 meters to the north and is the Xiaomi Smart Industrial Park, the third park established by Xiaomi in Beijing.

It seems ironic that the two office buildings are now located next to each other.

The two were once intimate. Xiaomi used to be an investor and important sales channel of Roborock Technology. In the early days of the latter’s establishment, the sweeping robots of Roborock Technology were mainly sold through the channels of the former. Regardless of Xiaomi’s initial channel support and the brand endorsement of , Roborock Technology’s sweeping robots Can it still sell well?

Now Stone Technology has become a "rebel", and together with Huami has become a "witness" to the cracks in Xiaomi's ecological chain.

Stone Technology is decoupled from Mijia at the product level, echoing the crazy reduction of Lei Jun’s holdings.

The relationship between Roborock Technology and Xiaomi changed subtly. In September 2017, Roborock Technology launched the first intelligent sweeping robot named after Roborock.

Relying on Xiaomi’s reputation and channels, Xiaomi ecological chain companies basically had no worries about sales in the early days, and the same can be said for Stone.

Stone Technology believes that it relies heavily on Xiaomi channels, but at the same time, Xiaomi also brought sales to it during this period.

From 2016 to 2018, the sales of Roborock Technology’s sweeping robots have been rising, with revenue of 183 million yuan, 1.119 billion yuan, and 3.051 billion yuan respectively. The prospectus mentioned that the revenue obtained from Mijia customized brand products Roborock Technology accounted for The proportions of revenue are 98.58%, 88.36%, and 47.16%.

The problem of Roborock Technology’s reliance on Xiaomi can be viewed from two different angles. In the prospectus, Roborock Technology listed ten risks related to Xiaomi, from sales channels to replacement of foundries, patents, gross profits, etc. The later the period, the more Roborock regarded Xiaomi as a stumbling block on its own development.

But at the same time, Stone Technology must understand that all these risks were the biggest advantages of Stone Technology in the first three years of its establishment from 2014 to 2016.

At that time, domestic sweeping robots were in their early stages. If it weren’t for Xiaomi’s strong brand endorsement, it would be hard to say that Roborock Technology alone would be able to make good products and educate the market well at that time.

What Stone Technology is talking about so far is the glorious record of 100% positive reviews from users when Xiaomi launched the first batch of sweeping robots.

Lei Jun is one of the key players in Stone Technology. In the eyes of Chang Jing, the founder of Stone Technology, “Lei is always a good leader.”

In fact, Xiaomi’s investment in Stone is very early. Later reports mentioned that when Xiaomi’s investors came to inspect, Roborock’s prototypes were still “smashy,” and the development progress of Roborock Technology was delayed again and again.

In the autumn of 2016, Mijia sweeping robot was released, which was manufactured by Stone Technology.

From June 2014 to August 2016, Roborock Technology spent two years developing and producing a sweeping robot. This should be the best period for the relationship between Roborock Technology and Xiaomi. Until September 2017, Roborock Technology launched its own brand of sweeping robot.

However, after 2017, Roborock Technology no longer wanted to OEM for Xiaomi and began to take the route of its own brand.

Stone Technology wants to build its own brand of sweeping robots for two reasons.

One is that Chang Jing mentioned that he does not want to OEM for Xiaomi all the time, and the other is the low gross profit of Xiaomi ecological chain companies that are strictly restricted by Lei Jun.

"De-rice" has become the key direction of Stone Technology.

The revenue structure of Stone Technology has changed in 2019, and the proportion of self-owned brand revenue has increased significantly. From 2019 to the first half of 2021, the sales of Stone Technology’s own brands accounted for 65.73%, 70.72% and 98.23% respectively.

The proportion of private brands has increased. The most obvious benefit is the increase in gross profit margin. The gross profit margin of Xiaomi robots manufactured by Stone Technology has been below 20%. With the growth of private brand sales, the gross profit margin of Stone Technology has increased from 2016. increased from 19.21% to 51.32% in 2020.

But at the same time, Stone Technology also bears the price of breaking away from Xiaomi.

The most direct thing is that without Xiaomi’s channels, Stone Technology’s marketing expenses have soared.

While the gross profit margin is increasing, the elimination of Xiaomi has also gradually increased the sales cost of Roborock Technology. In the first three quarters of 2021, Stone Technology’s marketing expenses reached 513 million, accounting for 13.4% of total revenue, an increase of 39.4% over the same period last year.

3. Meeting on the battlefield and becoming rivals

Today’s Roborock Technology and Xiaomi are standing on the same battlefield and are each other’s rivals.

But as far as the sweeping robot market is concerned, the competition is more intense.

One is that overall sales are declining. According to data from Aowei Cloud, the online sales volume of the industry in the fourth quarter of 2021 decreased by 19.3% year-on-year, and the online sales volume of the sweeping machine industry decreased by 10.7% year-on-year in 2021.

In addition, the new and old opponents of bring a lot of pressure to Shitou.

According to the latest data from Aowei Cloud, the online market retail share of Roborock sweeping robot has surpassed Xiaomi, ranking third in the industry. It is preceded by old rival Ecovacs and new rival Cloud Whale. Cloud Whale's first sweeping robot was launched in 2019, and it has surpassed Roborock Technology and Xiaomi to rank second in terms of retail share in the online market.

Xiaomi’s sweeping robot has also become a new opponent for Roborock Technology. After the first-generation sweeper, Roborock developed a handheld vacuum cleaner for Xiaomi. Currently, these two products are still OEM-produced by Mijia, but Roborock has not developed an integrated sweeping and mopping product for Xiaomi. Xiaomi has fostered new ecological chain companies , Yunmi and Zhuimi. In the second half of 2019, it launched two Mijia sweepers that integrate sweeping and mopping.

Nowadays, Xiaomi Home mainly promotes the sweeping robot series Chai Mi, which was invested by Xiaomi and Shunwei in April 2018.

In addition to sweeping robots, Chang Jing and Lei Jun "step into the same river" in the field of car manufacturing.

On the evening of March 30, 2021, Xiaomi Group issued an announcement officially announcing the construction of a car. The initial investment is 10 billion yuan, and the investment is expected to be 10 billion US dollars (approximately 65.7 billion yuan) in the next 10 years. CEO of Xiaomi Group Guan Leijun will concurrently serve as the CEO of the smart electric vehicle business.

At the same time, Roborock Technology has also entered the field of car manufacturing.

Changjing established Shanghai Luoke Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. on January 8, 2021, and as early as the beginning of 2021, it was reported that Yan Feng, the original WM Motor CTO, had joined.

Current public information shows that Luo Ke Automobile’s first car is positioned to compete with the Mercedes-Benz G series off-road models. It hopes to use range extension technology to achieve a single range of more than 1,000 kilometers. Chang Jing serves as the chairman of Luoke Automobile and completed a US$100 million financing at the end of 2021. The lead investor was Tencent Group , and the investment institution Sequoia also participated in the investment.

On April 29, it was reported that Luo Ke Automobile had received approximately US$200 million in Series D financing from well-known institutions such as Coatue Manaqement, Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital .

In addition, it is reported that Changjing is no longer involved in the daily operations of Stone Technology, and his work focuses on automotive products. Changjing denied this statement in a column and stated that building a car is a personal preference and investment.

The new force is considered to be a 20 billion yuan project, and even Xiaomi has been questioned.

For Changjing, although he has the experience and endorsement of a listed star company like Stone Technology, Li Bin , Li Xiang, Xiaopeng , or Lei Jun, etc. in the industry, which one does not have rich business experience , but still can't avoid the pitfalls of building a car. In comparison, Changjing's advantages are not so obvious.

The key thing is that this time, Changjing cannot have the support of Xiaomi like Stone Technology did in the early days of starting a business.