It has been more than one year since we first proposed the first year of mopping the land. Combined with marginal changes and deduction, the interpretation of the clean electrical appliance market in the development stage of the track, core driving factors, regional competition and other directions has become the key to the industry.
From the development stage of the track, the penetration and promotion trend of the popularization and substitution of self-cleaning sweepers is firm and the space is broad.
In 2021, the current price of floor sweepers showed a downward trend, with sales growth of 32% and sales decline of 6.9%. This is due to the accelerated elimination of low-end machines, with low-end machine sales of – 39% year-on-year. The proportion of the track has brought a gap of 24pct. Even if the share of high-end machines rises rapidly, there is still a short-term market gap due to the awakening of demand and the mismatch of price band. With the average price of self-cleaning new products reaching 4200 yuan and the sales volume of 3K + products accounting for more than half, the price of high-end machines is limited to short-term consumption, which tends to be stable and is expected to cover the middle end. Even if only young and middle-aged families in the urban market are the potential audience, the ownership rate of floor sweepers is only 12.3%, and self-cleaning can replace the traditional single sweep model. Its self-cleaning experience still needs landing education to expand potential consumers with inherent cognition.
The development of the washing machine track has been in a high-speed growth period of marginal substitution, with intensified competition and the mainstream price band or downward coverage. As a new category, the floor washing machine has leapt to the top 2 of cleaning appliances since June 2021, with a share of 22-25%. The capacity of incoming players has rapidly expanded from 15 at the beginning of the year to 70 + at the end of the year. Due to the lack of middle and low-end products, high-end machines have grown rapidly, with 4K + yuan accounting for 27%. Based on the competition trend deduced during the air conditioning War (20012006), the number of brands decreased sharply (400 → 30), the concentration increased sharply after the early shock (cr3,33% → 55%), and the enterprise profit suffered a short-term setback (6 ~ 8% → 3%), and then the leader ushered in the golden development period of Matthew concentration. Because the technical ceiling of the floor washer is lower than that of the floor sweeper, the sharp increase of players may impact the price reduction or be a high probability event. SKUs below 2K yuan have been monitored, accompanied by capacity expansion, scale release and competition.
From the perspective of core driving factors, the track is tilting from the edge driven by functional innovation to the brand channel. The innovation degree of cleaning function defines three stages: ground cleaning, machine cleaning and environmental cleaning. In the past, the low sales volume of pure dust collection mode in China was difficult to solve the basic demand for ground cleaning in China, while the traditional floor mopping appliances only transferred the ground cleaning labor to machine cleaning, so it was not really advanced until the complete labor substitution of self-cleaning technology was realized. At present, machine cleaning is the key to product function innovation. Mop self-cleaning is the core pain point in machine cleaning, but it is still not fully functional. With the extension of cleaning cycle, there are still many links that need manual participation. This entry can be used as an important reference for the advantages and disadvantages of product functions. With the gradual maturity of product form, the influence margin of brand accumulation and channel control increases. While cleaning appliances are dominated by online products (87.4%), the popularization stage of its new products also determines that we need to pay attention to offline experience, exhibition promotion, live education and other touch.
From the perspective of regional market expansion, the Chinese brand of floor sweeper is accelerating to replace the overseas leading share. On the one hand, the revenue of overseas leading iRobot has maintained steady growth in Europe, America and Japan in recent four years, which confirms the sustainability of the demand for overseas tracks. On the other hand, iRobot’s share in North America and EMEA has declined by 16pct and 28pct respectively in four years, which is precisely due to the accelerated replacement of Chinese brands in overseas markets. Under the market background of high proportion of overseas random and visual navigation, 1) the national brand takes LDS + global planning as the product core to win high recognition of products in overseas markets; 2) Under the bonus of Chinese engineers, the high-end innovation cycle has significantly outperformed iRobot; 3) The advantages of China’s supply chain and online channel marketing experience have impacted the overseas market. With Ecovacs Robotics Co.Ltd(603486) , stone’s overseas price has been covered upward in the following 22 years, facing the direct competition with iRobot’s products of thousands of dollars. In addition, based on the comparison of the revenue of various companies, we judge that the actual overseas market share of national brands is significantly higher than the current market monitoring value, and the overseas output drive and certainty of Chinese brands are higher than expected.
Investment strategy: the penetration and popularization trend of self-cleaning appliances in China has strong certainty. In the development process, due to the fierce competition, short-term track and enterprise profits may be affected. After clarifying the correct direction of product innovation and the guarantee of channel brand overweight, it will not change the share expansion outside China and the growth certainty after competition. The core focus is on the double track leader Ecovacs Robotics Co.Ltd(603486) , with the core technology of floor sweeper and the accumulated Beijing Roborock Technology Co.Ltd(688169) , and JS global life, which expands the new business of floor sweeper and has the advantage of overseas cleaning leader.
Risk warning: macroeconomic downturn; The terminal demand is less than expected; The expansion of new products is less than expected; Industry competition intensifies.
