Last month, Dyson released its first dry and wet and dual-purpose floor cleaner V12 Detect Slim Nautik, equipped with a brand new floor scrubber accessories that support vacuuming and mopping. The official claims that a cleaning rate of 95% can be achieved with a push and pull. The product is also equipped with a 300ml water tank and a 360ml sewage tank, which can meet the floor cleaning of 160 square meters. As the vacuum cleaner produced by Dyson, the price is naturally quite expensive. The official preheating information display is priced at 5,499 yuan and will be sold on Double 11.
However, Xiao Lei has recently searched through major e-commerce platforms, Dyson's official website and WeChat mini-programs, but cannot find this new product, and it seems that it has been removed from the shelves by Dyson. Not only can I pay deposit to make an appointment anymore, but even the product page has disappeared. The abnormal behavior of seems to imply a problem. Can even a brand like Dyson save the vacuum cleaner market that is rampant?
(Photo source: Dyson official)
In recent years, the cleaning home appliance industry has undergone tremendous changes. The sweeping robots are iterating new functions every year. From the beginning, they are integrating sweeping and mopping, and gradually adding more functions such as automatic dust collection and automatic cleaning of mop, allowing users to completely free their hands. The new species floor scrubber has also gradually added ground sterilization, hot air drying, self-cleaning and other related functions. Compared with these two competitors, the upgrade of traditional vacuum cleaners is simply a step-by-step process, from wired to wireless, adding the function of filtering viruses and bacteria, and a small number of them add the mopping function, but this is obviously difficult to meet the needs of consumers. The vacuum cleaners seem to have come to the verge of being eliminated.
How long can the vacuum cleaner's leading price advantage support it in terms of its increasingly powerful competitors? Are traditional vacuum cleaners really going to completely withdraw from the stage of the times? Statistics of Aowei Cloud Network show that in 2021, the retail volume of cleaning appliances in all channels reached 29.8 million units, increased by 2.6% year-on-year; retail sales reached 30.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.9%. Among them, the sales of sweeping robots accounted for 38.8%, an increase of 28% year-on-year. The sales share of new species of floor scrubbers also climbed to 18.7%, a year-on-year increase of 348%. The proportion of wireless vacuum cleaner is only 26%, a year-on-year decrease of 7%, and has been gradually divided.
(Photo source: Aowei Cloud Network)
Let’s take a look at the situation this year. In the first half of the year, the sales and sales of domestic floor washing machines achieved year-on-year growth of 63% and 61% respectively, and continued to maintain a sharp upward trend in the third quarter. Moreover, the shape of the product is constantly fission and its functions are becoming more perfect. high-end products mainly focus on floor cleaning/vacuum cleaning, and some also support automatic cleaning/water change; mid-range products have been strengthened in sterilization ability, smearing/floor joint cleaning; some single products mainly focus on high-temperature steam cleaning, etc., which promotes the accelerated development of floor washing machines.
The development of the sweeping robot this year is not very good. Nowadays, major brands are pursuing high-end and all-round products, and have equipped the sweeping robot with base stations to realize a series of functions such as self-cleaning of rags, automatic dust collection, and automatic water replenishment. The performance of the product has indeed improved, but the price has also risen sharply. The average price of the product has risen from 2,163 yuan last year to 3,093 yuan, resulting in a significant drop in sales volume and price imbalance. But even so, sweeping robots still occupy the largest share in the cleaning home appliance market. In a short period of time, almost no other competitors can shake their market position. Once the price threshold of these all-round products is slightly lowered, it will still be very attractive to consumers.
(Photo source: Yunjing Official)
Traditional vacuum cleaners are not as intelligent and convenient as sweeping robots in terms of vacuuming. The cleaning effect in wet-drag scenes is not as good as floor washing machines, resulting in a rapid decline in market demand. In Q3 this year, wireless vacuum cleaners sales were 840 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 23.5%. Although the decline was slightly slower than the 32.7% in the first half of the year, the market lacked new products. Even with Double 11 as a helper in the fourth quarter, the growth momentum was not as good as sweeping robots and floor washing machines. Aowei Cloud Network made a prediction that during the Double 11 event, the market size of wireless vacuum cleaners may decline by double digits, and the sales data of JD platform also confirms this view.
Xiao Lei learned from JD.com that on the hot selling list of sweeping robots, the top of the Ecovacs T10 OMNI has sold 33,000 units, and the price is 33,99 yuan. The second-place Stone G10S is priced at 4,099 yuan, and it also sells over 26,000 units. The floor scrubbers also have a hot sales volume, and Tianke directly dominated the top three hot selling list, with a total sales volume of more than 50,000 units. Looking back at the top wireless vacuum cleaners, the top two are the two products of Xiaomi , with a maximum sales volume of about 3,000 units. Such data is far from comparable to sweeping robots or floor washing machines.
(Photo source: JD.com)
From the current market situation, the living space of wireless vacuum cleaners has been compressed to become smaller and smaller, and there is no big opportunity for growth. However, it is unlikely to completely eliminate wireless vacuum cleaners in a short period of time. After all, it still has the killer weapon of "low price".
The low-end market may be the last way out?
In fact, it can be roughly seen from the prices of several types of products that all-round sweeping robots with base stations have occupied more than 4,000 high-end markets. Since its first all-round base station product was launched last year, it has quickly occupied nearly 37% of the sweeping robot market, pushing the overall sweeping robot toward high-end. The floor scrubbers are mainly distributed in the price range of 2000~2999, 3000~3999 yuan, with shares reaching 26% and 38% respectively, helping the floor scrubbers stabilize their mid-to-high-end position in the cleaning home appliance market. In the low-end 1,000 yuan price market, wireless vacuum cleaners account for 75% of the market share , an increase from 65% last year.
(Photo source: Xiaomi official)
It can be seen that the high-end market is already the home field of sweeping robots. Although the floor washing machines also want to squeeze in, consumers' acceptance of new species is not particularly high. If you want to raise prices and go to the high-end, you may still need to undergo further testing by the market. In the mid-range market, sweeping robots and floor scrubbers are in fierce competition, constantly seizing the original market share of wireless vacuum cleaners, which makes the latter only lower the price and retreat to the low-end market. If this trend continues, the low-end market may be the last way for vacuum cleaners. Without major technological upgrades, it is really difficult to compete with the other two competitors.
However, wireless vacuum cleaners will not be eliminated in a short period of time. If they are rooted in the low-end market, they still have great development advantages. First of all, it is difficult for sweeping robots and floor scrubbers to penetrate into the low-end market, and the cost of products is relatively high. If the cost of functional compression is really to be reduced, the product experience will plummet, which is not worth the loss. At present, both types of products are working hard to hit the high-end, and it is unlikely that they will directly reduce their value to seize the share of the low-end market. Therefore, wireless vacuum cleaners have almost no competitors in the low-end market and can develop as much as possible.
Secondly, the cleaning appliance market still needs a wireless vacuum cleaner to fill some functional scenario gaps. Although the sweeping robot is smart and convenient, it has a large limitation in use and is not necessarily suitable for most people. If the home space is smaller or there are more furniture, the vacuum cleaner will be much more practical than the sweeping robot. Moreover, by replacing different brush heads, the vacuum cleaner can also clean sofas, curtains, beds and other places, and its flexibility is far better than that of the sweeping robot.
(Photo source: Xiaomi official)
Finally, in the face of several times the price difference, most consumers may give priority to vacuum cleaners rather than sweeping robots, especially in the sinking consumer market, where vacuum cleaners will be more popular. At present, the price of mainstream sweeping robots is around one or two thousand, while the most ordinary wired vacuum cleaner only costs more than one hundred, and the wireless vacuum cleaner only costs around 500 yuan. Faced with such a large price gap, it is self-evident what choice consumers will make.
Although the floor sweeping robot and floor scrubber are growing strongly and constantly compressing the market share of vacuum cleaners, the latter still has an irreplaceable market position and maintains strong competitiveness in the low price range. However, once the price of floor scrubbers is slightly lower, it may pose a threat to the current wireless vacuum cleaner market, after all, the functional attributes are much stronger. Therefore, if wireless vacuum cleaners want to maintain the last market and struggle to seek growth opportunities, they still need to insist on product function innovation. Stagnant will inevitably be eliminated. Improving the battery life of wireless vacuum cleaners, enhancing the ability to filter viruses and bacteria, and simplifying the cleaning and care steps of products may become one of the future development directions of vacuum cleaners.
