text / Sihai
produced / Node Finance
Node Finance noticed that after an unexpected round of highs from 2020 to 2021, the market in the sweeping robot industry has now entered a period of contraction, and the industry shipments continue to decline. In the first eight months of this year, the online sales of the sweeping robot industry only increased by by 9% year-on-year, with sales of 2.01 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 29.4%. In September, shipments of sweeping robots continued to decline.
Ecovas As the leader in the industry, we cannot be immune to the cold. In the second quarter of this year, the company fell into a situation where revenue increased but profit increased. The company's revenue in the second quarter was 3.621 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.54%, and its net profit attributable to shareholders was 453 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.34%.
In the first half of this year, Ecovacs' performance also had a relatively obvious problem, that is, weak growth. In the first half of the year, the company's revenue reached 6.822 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.31%, while the growth rate of net profit attributable to shareholders was only 3.15%. You should know that in the first half of 2021, the company's net profit attributable to shareholders grew by as high as 543.3%, and the revenue growth rate also reached triple digits.
Whether it is the industry market situation or the performance trends of leading companies, it shows that the sweeping robot industry has bid farewell to "high growth". In the severe environment, Ecovacs has placed its hopes on a new scenario. On October 26, Ecovacs held a 2022 autumn strategic new product launch conference in Europe, officially entering the commercial robot market.
"DEEBOT PRO" is the first product of Ecovacs commercial robot, and it has three characteristics.
The first is that through the combination of K1 and M1, one small and one large robots, it can flexibly form various combinations to meet the ground cleaning needs in small, medium and large commercial environments.
The second is equipped with the robot multi-machine collaboration system "HIVE", which allows multiple robots to have the "strongest brain" shared, such as sharing infrastructure, interoperable environment and location information, as well as independent scheduling and collaborative cleaning operations.
The third is to adopt the rental model, which can reduce the cost of the enterprise.
Ecovac's solution is highly targeted, but its development expectations are still unclear, and it is likely to follow the company's old path in sweeping robots. The core reason is that the robot industry is different from capital-intensive industries. The core technology is the competitiveness of enterprises, and DEEBOT PRO does not have the technical advantage of "no one and self-have".
This is the same as the situation encountered by Ecovacs in sweeping robots. After Stone Technology successfully launched a raid with its algorithm, Ecovacs backhandedly strengthened its research on algorithms, and the sweeping robot industry has fallen into inclination.
At the same time, it is also unknown whether Ecovacs can gain technological advantages. The company's R&D expenses have long been lower than sales expenses. In 2021, the company's sales expenses were 3.237 billion yuan, 5.9 times the R&D expenses, and higher than the level of Stone Technology. In the first half of this year, Ecovacs' R&D expenses were 352 million yuan, less than 20% of the sales expenses.
Overall, As the leader, Ecovacs has more experience exploring new directions, but its shortcomings have not yet been filled, which has laid hidden dangers for the company's development.
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