/ Asahi/January 24, 2022 Guangzhou -- In recent years, the sweeping robot industry has entered the fast track of development.
As the post-90s and post-00s gradually become the main force of consumption, they pay more attention to the quality of life, health awareness is further enhanced, coupled with the prevalence of the "lazy economy", the use rate of the floor sweeping robot and attention enthusiasm has increased significantly.
Data from Aowei Cloud showed that during the "Double 11" period in 2021, the overall sales volume of clean appliances was 5.53 billion yuan, up 35.7 percent year-on-year. Among them, the floor sweeping robot and floor washing machine became the twin engines driving the growth of cleaning appliances. The floor washing machine saw a year-on-year growth of 166%, and the floor sweeping robot saw a year-on-year growth of 45%.
The capital market has also increased the size of the sweeping robot industry. Enterprise check data shows that in 2021, there are dozens of domestic financing events around sweeping robots, including Jihai Technology, Zuomai Technology, Trifo, Shunzao technology, You Li and other enterprises have gained capital favor.
Among them, Jihai Technology is undoubtedly a more eye-catching one.
Just a short while ago, the World Innovators Meet (WIM) 2021, organised by EqualOcean, opened in Shanghai. Wang Zhonglin, CEO and founder of Jihai Technology, won the award for his years of deep cultivation and innovation in the field of sweeping robots.
In the increasingly fierce competition of sweeping robot circuit, set sea technology is how to break the market? What is the current situation of the sweeping robot industry? What will happen in the future? Wang gave his answer.
Sweeping robot insight: more popular, more innovative
Looking at the products in 2021, Wang Zhonglin summed up two development trends of the sweeping robot industry:
One is more universal. "More people are beginning to realize the value of sweeping robots. Originally, people thought that the sweeping robot was not good to use, sweeping is not clean, sweeping is not planned, running, but in 2021, many people have begun to feel that the sweeping robot is good to use, can sweep and drag, can let them free more time to enjoy life, "Wang Zhonglin said.
Indeed, at the beginning of the development of sweeping robot, the brand is less, the product function is not practical, the cleaning technology is weak, the mainstream products are mostly foreign brands, many users who buy the product have a bad impression of the sweeping robot, think it is a "clean toy". With the development of technology, the practicality and experience of intelligent cleaning products are greatly improved, and the recognition and acceptance of the sweeping robot by consumers is also significantly improved.
In particular, in the past two years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the "house economy" has accelerated, and people have more days to stay at home, further boosting the development of the entire intelligent cleaning industry. According to Jingpin Household Appliance Trend Insight 2021 released by JD.com, the transaction volume of floor washing machines increased by more than 5 times year-on-year during Double 11, and more than 50% of users chose self-cleaning and sweeping robots.
The second is to be more innovative. "There is more innovation on the supply side, and some companies have strong insight and can launch innovative products based on user demand," Wang said.
In fact, in 2021, the domestic sweeping robot has been greatly improved in navigation, collision prevention, self-cleaning and intelligence. In the e-commerce platform, most of the best-selling sweeping robots have the functions of planning cleaning, positioning and navigation, mopping, App remote control and so on. Some also support the function design of disinfection and self-cleaning mop.
In this regard, Wang Zhonglin believes: "In the long run, in the consumer electronics inside the bottom logic is innovation."
As a global innovative small household appliances enterprise integrating product research and development, sales and service, Jihai Technology has been focusing on technology since its establishment, attaching great importance to research and development and innovation. It is understood that the R&D and operation team of Jihai Technology gathers core talents from dozens of global top 500, technology and other representative enterprises.
Take Ebo Q11 sweeping robot, a representative product of Jihai Technology, as an example. It is the first batch of sweeping robots in China to adopt the embedded lidar scheme, with strong obstacle avoidance ability. It not only offers a "dust treasure" function, but also can be controlled remotely through the app. Automatic charging, smart zoning and personalized cleaning options are also available.
On the way to innovation, Wang Zhonglin obviously has more thinking.
"The so-called product innovation has two levels of innovation, most of the current innovation is around the needs of users, such as the treatment of pet hair, recharge instability, these are some of the needs of users, basically all the companies are iterative on this point", Wang Zhonglin said, "we go back to the first principles of innovation thinking, in fact, the essence of the sweeping robot is to complete four things, one is Sweeping the floor, the second is to mop the floor, the third is real-time self-cleaning, the fourth is heavy stain treatment, if these four points are completed, the bottom structure of the sweeping robot must change."
According to Wang Zhonglin, Jihai Technology will launch a flagship new generation of sweeping robot next year, which will "completely disrupt the current form of the sweeping robot industry".
Latecomers live on, set sea technology to break the market
Although the head enterprises with the advantage of first mover have occupied part of the market by early accumulation, as the "late wave", Jihai Technology is the late comer, becoming a worthy dark horse in the sweeping robot circuit.
According to Wang Zhonglin, Jihai's achievements in 2021 focus on four aspects.
In terms of capital, in 2021, Jihai Technology Financing obtained two rounds of financing in less than one year. Enterprise check shows that in March 2021, Jihai Technology obtained angel round financing of RMB 10 million from Tongchuye and Qingying Venture Capital. In November of the same year, Jihai Technology once again completed A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan, led by Toutou Shi Dao, and Tongchuang Weiye continued to hold.
In a public interview, Hu Qingping of Tongchuang Weiye said that under the circumstances of such fierce competition in the industry, the pace of research and development of Jihai technology products and putting them into the market is much faster than expected, and can maintain the continuous growth of revenue, which makes them very confident about the follow-up development of Jihai Technology.
In terms of products, the representative products of Jihai Technology include sweeping robots, intelligent floor washing machines, air earphones, etc., and provide overall ecological solutions combining software and hardware. Not only technological breakthroughs have been made, but dozens of patents have been obtained in the field of sweeping robots. Meanwhile, it is well received by users. In the past three years, the compound annual growth rate of Jihai's sales has reached 75%. Its products have scored 4.6 on Amazon platform and ranked No.1 in sales on Lotte platform for several times.
In terms of sales, Wang Zhonglin said: "2021 Jihai Technology in the sales end or reflect some broken, we did 150 million sales". "We aim to achieve 1.5 billion yuan in sales by 2022," he said.
Supply chain, set Sea technology also made a breakthrough. "We've acquired a factory and become more established upstream and downstream throughout the supply chain."
The capital end is fruitful, the product end is recognized, the sales end is broken, and the supply chain end is more solid. According to Wang Zhonglin, Jihai Technology will basically complete its 1.0 phase in 2021, and focus will be placed on products and talent echelons in 2022.
"In 2021, our team will grow from 30 people at the beginning of the year to 100 by the end of the year, and the biggest increase will be in the product and technology side, as well as part of the business side. Next year, our goal is to increase to 500 people," Wang Jianlin said. "We will also consider the long-term view of recruitment, considering the development path of the next three, five or even five to ten years Diameter ".
Long-termism, which is what Jihai Technology insists on from beginning to end. "The ultimate form of the sweeper has not yet appeared," in Wang Zhonglin's opinion, "the development of the sweeper robot will evolve into several stages, the first stage is differentiated innovation; The second stage is scale, and the two are mutually reinforcing; The third stage is technical digging; The fourth stage is the product matrix level of home connectivity, and the competition is still in the first stage."
In the future, with the maturity of sensors, AI, big data, 5G and other technologies, the sweeping robot industry chain will break out into a strong vitality. In the long run, the fierce competition in the home appliance market will inevitably return to the hard track of technology, research and development, and quality, and set Sea technology has already prepared.
In 2022, Wang has two cards of chance. One is to use new technology and new products to meet the market's demand for upgrading experience, "the products to be launched this year have strong innovation, in the functional application of differentiated play method." The second is to make efforts in overseas markets, "we have done relatively well in overseas markets, and will continue to make efforts and breakthroughs in overseas markets next year."
China has become the world's largest consumer of sweeping robots, accounting for about 40% of the global market size, according to the 2022-2028 Market Competition Situation and Development Trend Analysis Report of China's sweeping robot Industry released by Zhiyan Consulting.
In the future, the sweeping robot industry will evolve in the direction of more sinking, more differentiation and higher end, and Jihai Technology will adhere to being a "long-term alist", constantly consolidating the technical strength in the field of sweeping robot, continuously exploring and digging more people and scenes, creating core technical advantages, innovative product functions, and promoting the high-quality development of the industry in all aspects.
