From Newcomer to Top Ten, Chinese Robot Vacuums Sweep the Global Market
TMTPOST--"Robotic vacuums have taken over the floor cleaning tasks in my home. Even if they don't clean thoroughly the first time, they just go over it again. Plus, with no one home during the day, it can clean as many times as needed to get the job done," says a software engineer in a cleaning appliance store in Beijing, sharing his thoughts on robotic vacuums.
Since their introduction, robotic vacuums have been considered a key beneficiary of the "lazy economy," especially appealing to those born in the 1980s and 1990s. The fully automated cleaning mode and off-peak working hours of these devices their popularity.
According to statistics from big data solution provider AVC, from January to May this year, the online retail market for cleaning appliances in China reached 11.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.4%. Retail volume hit 9.92 million units, up 2.0% year-on-year. Retail sales revenues of robotic vacuums grew by 20.1% year-on-year.
As Chinese brands accelerate their international expansion, eight out of the top ten brands by market share are Chinese, and Chinese brands hold a combined 63% share of the global market.
Despite its overseas origin of robotic vacuums, Chinese brands have achieved remarkable success.
Midway Opportunities and the Rise of New Leaders
If the competition in the robotic vacuum market is compared to a martial arts showdown, Sweden's Electrolux is deemed the first to open a school. In 1996, Electrolux developed the prototype "Trilobite" robotic vacuum. However, it took five years to bring it to market, and its high price of $2,000 deterred many consumers. To put this in perspective, a McDonald's cheeseburger and small fries each cost $0.99 in 2001, meaning the price of one Trilobite vacuum could buy a year's worth of McDonald's meals for one person.
In addition to its prohibitive price, the Trilobite faced intense competition. In the same year it was released, Dyson, now known for its high-speed blowers and vacuum cleaners, designed the DC06 robotic vacuum. The DC06, with 90 sensors, 60 batteries, and three processors, was even more complex than the Trilobite, and its potential market price was astronomical, leading Dyson to halt its development.
Around the same time, LG released the Roboking robotic vacuum, and Electrolux's North American subsidiary Eureka launched a similar product, but these too faded into obscurity. Before 2002, all robotic vacuum brands were still in their infancy, refining their techniques with few delivering tangible market impact.
It wasn't until iRobot introduced the "Roomba" in September 2002 that robotic vacuums became a hit. According to the company's former CEO and co-founder Colin Angle, iRobot conceived the idea of a household robotic vacuum in 2001 and quickly developed the Roomba using existing robotics and vacuum cleaner technologies.
Initially, iRobot did not hold high expectations for the Roomba, aiming to produce 10,000 to 15,000 units. Surprisingly, over 10,000 units were sold shortly after launch, vastly exceeding expectations. By the end of its first year, Roomba sales had reached 70,000 units.
Wei Jian, a technical engineer with over 15 years of experience in robotic vacuum R&D, told TMTPost, "The success of the first-generation Roomba is within expectation from a technical perspective. It used a random collision cleaning path similar to the Trilobite, and despite its simplicity, it had no significant advantages in cleaning efficiency, user interaction, or cleaning ability." iRobot's success lay in its market strategy—combining mature technology with a low-price strategy. At $200, it cost a tenth or less of its competitors and used components from established suppliers, allowing for lower production costs and faster scaling.
An example is the German company Kärcher's 2002 RoboCleaner, which featured advanced base station dust collection but was priced at around $1,300, much higher than consumers’ expected prices and failing to gain market traction.
As the market for robotic vacuums heated up, brands like Hitachi and Samsung entered the fray but couldn't catch up iRobot's early lead. Many brands quietly closed their product lines after initial trials. iRobot's dramatic initial success was a mix of market savvy and luck, with its founders' backgrounds in robotics but limited connections to household cleaning. The company's key to success was its basic cleaning capabilities and low-price strategy. By 2004, Roomba sales had surpassed one million units, maintaining its lead in the market.
Emerging Chinese Rivals
Around 2004, iRobot began seeking Chinese manufacturers to reduce production costs further. Angle told TMTPost that iRobot started looking for suitable assembly and component suppliers in China in 2003, quickly reaching an annual production of around 350,000 units.
Gold Credit Group was one of iRobot's partners in China. As demand for robotic vacuums grew, domestic R&D teams and manufacturing companies began targeting this field. In 2005, Shenzhen Baole Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (now Guangdong Baole Robot Co., Ltd.) entered the intelligent robotic vacuum manufacturing sector.
Around the same period, Qian Dongqi, the current chairman of Ecovacs Group, a top auto cleaning robots supplier, led his team in developing related products, successfully creating the first-generation vacuum cleaner robot prototype in 2005. Similar to iRobot, Ecovacs started its robotic vacuum journey mid-course, relying on its background in vacuum cleaner manufacturing.
Ecovacs' predecessor, Suzhou TEK, founded in 1998, focused on vacuum cleaner R&D and manufacturing. The cleaning power of robotic vacuums, which relied on suction, aligned with TEK's expertise. Initially, iRobot did not see Ecovacs as a significant threat due to its newness and smaller scale compared to established brands like Samsung and Hitachi.
By 2005, iRobot had already iterated the Roomba series and launched the Roomba 400 model, enhancing cleaning performance and navigation. In November 2005, iRobot went public on Nasdaq and released the Scooba 5900 mopping robot in December.
Other potential challengers also emerged, such as Neato Robotics, founded in 2005 in the U.S. Despite a lack of immediate market impact, Neato Robotics, like Ecovacs, started its journey without established market influence or significant products.
In 2005, the robotic vacuum market entered a downturn in technological innovation. Consumers' expectations for robotic vacuums to display intelligent behavior were unmet by random collision cleaning models, which also faced issues like missed spots and obstacle avoidance.
Although iRobot is the industry pioneer, it fails to lead innovation, continuing to tweak the random collision cleaning path without significant improvements. Meanwhile, iRobot's dominance gave it strong pricing power, raising its prices from $200 for the first-generation model to $300, and by the Roomba 700 series in 2011, to $600.
In 2009, Ecovacs launched the Deebot series, and in February 2010, Neato Robotics released the Neato XV-11 robotic vacuum. Over the next decade, these newcomers would challenge iRobot's dominance.
Neato Robotics introduced laser navigation technology (LIDAR) to robotic vacuums, allowing them to create indoor maps and plan cleaning paths, laying the foundation for the SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) algorithms that became standard for the industry.
Ecovacs focused on making affordable products with added features. The first-generation Deebot 730 included voice interaction. However, compared to Neato Robotics' industry-changing impact, Ecovacs appeared to be aiming at future growth, releasing products like air purifying and window cleaning robots without heavily investing in robotic vacuum innovation.
As technology direction shifted, brands like Samsung and LG released robotic vacuums with visual navigation (vSLAM) technology, enhancing path planning and obstacle avoidance compared to traditional random collision models.
iRobot's attempts to solve path planning and map creation with the Virtual Wall Lighthouse system in 2007 were flawed. The system required manual placement of devices to guide the vacuum, turning an automated task into a user chore. In 2015, iRobot switched to vSLAM technology, retiring the Lighthouse system.
These missed opportunities allowed new entrants to challenge iRobot, leveling the playing field. As former dominant players' "misstepped," newcomers seized the opportunity to catch up.
A New Phase of Competition
According to market research, global robotic vacuum shipments reached 1.6 million units in 2010 and 4.1 million by 2015. Ecovacs and Neato Robotics were major drivers for this growth. Ecovacs expanded into the European and U.S. markets in 2012, accelerating its global presence while rapidly growing in China.
In 2011, Ecovacs participated in the Double 11 shopping festival, raking in two million yuan in sales. By 2013, this had grown to 62.27 million yuan, and by 2015, to 315 million yuan. Data from CMM Consulting shows that since 2013, Ecovacs' domestic sales have surpassed iRobot's.
Technologically, Ecovacs shifted to SLAM technology with the Deebot 9 series in 2013 and 2014, improving cleaning performance, and introducing mop functionality.
Meanwhile, iRobot faced market saturation. The rapid expansion of robotic vacuums slowed around 2014. Emerging markets such as China and India were developing, but major markets like the U.S. and Europe showed signs of slowdown. Many U.S. households owned robotic vacuums, and China, once the "world's factory," had become a significant consumer market, with over 20% of global shipments in 2015.
In this new phase, iRobot's growth slowed. The company, having shifted from cost-effective products to higher-end models, missed the opportunity to capitalize on the cost-conscious Chinese market, giving brands like Ecovacs and Roborock the chance to gain market share.
By 2015, the robotic vacuum market had evolved from "random collision" to "planned cleaning" models, with Chinese brands like Ecovacs, Roborock, and Midea dominating, leveraging their home market and global networks.
The final chapters of this saga saw Chinese brands, initially nurtured by iRobot, surpassing their mentor, becoming new industry leaders and charting the future direction of the global robotic vacuum market.
Industry Innovation and Transformation
"Since 2018, robotic vacuum market has entered a new phase of technological development. From an overall perspective, it is difficult to find revolutionary breakthroughs. Various manufacturers have not stopped their technical exploration, but they are mainly addressing issues in the cleaning process," said Liu Chao, the general manager of Haier Home Robotics.
The new wave of technological innovation has also attracted new competitors, with Dreame being one of them. Nowadays, whether it is leading manufacturers or new entrants, they are all looking for ways to improve from 90 points out of 100 points to 95 points. For instance, to make corner cleaning more thorough, Dreame and Roborock have chosen to add mechanical arms capable of lateral mop movement, while Ecovacs has chosen to change the body structure to allow it to get closer to the corners of rooms.
But can the experience improvement from "good" to "excellent" really attract consumers? Liu believes that experience upgrades and cost reduction go hand in hand.
"Currently, the average price of products with base stations is relatively high. Therefore, as technology further accelerates its popularization in the future, the price of terminal products will still come down, and users will continue to pay for convenient cleaning experiences," he said.
From the emergence of the first-generation robotic vacuum to the present, in just 28 years, robotic vacuums have undergone four technological innovations and two iterations in the competitive landscape. According to the latest data released by IDC, global shipments of smart robotic vacuums in the first quarter were 4.554 million units, a year-on-year increase of 11.1%.
Among the top 10 manufacturers, eight are Chinese brands, and the remaining two are American brands. The combined market share of Chinese brands continues to rise. Specifically, iRobot is experiencing a 13.2% year-on-year decline, while other manufacturers are in a growth phase.
Zhao Siquan, Senior Analyst at IDC China, pointed out that the U.S. is still the largest market for smart robotic vacuums. Although Chinese manufacturers have superior products and faster iteration speeds, they face multiple challenges from the accumulated channel resources and brand influence of local brands in the U.S. market, resulting in relatively low market share for Chinese manufacturers in the U.S.
However, it is foreseeable that Chinese brands have already positioned themselves at the forefront of the global robotic vacuum market. Roborock, Ecovacs, and Xiaomi are all expected to take over the leadership position from iRobot, becoming market leaders. According to predictions by TMTPost, by the end of 2024, a Chinese brand will emerge as the "successor" to iRobot's current market position.
Chinese brands leverage vast domestic markets and strong manufacturing capabilities to drive innovation and scale. Ecovacs' and Roborock's global success exemplifies this, with diverse product portfolios meeting varied consumer needs.
China's robotic vacuum industry, once the apprentice, has become the frontrunner, leading the global market with technological innovation and strategic expansion. The rise of Chinese brands in this sector underscores the dynamic interplay of market forces, consumer demands, and technological advancements shaping the future of home cleaning.