OFweekRobotRecently, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Mechanical and Electrical Products held a working meeting on investigation and early warning of 337 sweeping robots in the United States in Beijing. The three companies involved in the case from Shenzhen and Suzhou all attended the meeting and expressed their active response to the lawsuit.
On April 18, the US cleaning Robot manufacturer iRobot filed a lawsuit against 11 competitors, accusing them of infringing on six of the company’s technology patents. The accused objects included 3 Chinese companies and 8 foreign companies, including Shenzhen Zhiyi Technology. Co., Ltd., Suzhou Laibao Electric Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Yinxing Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., and Bissell, Hoover, Royal Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd., bObsweep, Black & Decker, etc.
Among the three Chinese companies involved in this case, Shenzhen Zhiyi has its own brand of sweeping robots in the US market; Suzhou Laibao and Shenzhen Yinxing are OEM companies. Among the above-mentioned foreign companies involved, several of them have The sweeping robots are OEM by these two Chinese companies.
Data map
The Robot vacuum cleaner market has developed rapidly in recent years. Around 2010, domestic sweeping robot brands emerged one after another and gradually realized industrialization. At present, there are dozens of sweeping robot brands in the domestic market, such as Ecovacs, iRobot, Formart, Dibei, Xrobot, Haier, Midea, Prosenic, Philips and Samsung. However, the proportion of domestically established sweeping robot companies with core R&D capabilities is not high.
According to GFK data, the retail scale of China’s sweeping robot market in 2015 was around 5 billion yuan, and this figure will reach 7.5 billion yuan in 2017, and will increase to 12 billion yuan in 2018. The market space for sweeping robots is huge. At present, the US market and the Chinese market are the main markets for sweeping robots, but even in the most developed US market, the penetration rate of intelligent sweeping robots for households in the United States is 16%, and the penetration rate of intelligent sweeping robots in domestic coastal areas is 4%- 5%, and penetration in inland areas is as low as 0.5%.
As far as the current domestic market structure is concerned, Ecovacs, which has a market share of nearly 70%, has firmly occupied the top spot in the industry in recent years, while professional brands such as iRobot, Neato, and Formart fill the remaining 30% share, while other industries The market shares of Philips, Haier and other brands that have been transferred are almost negligible.
At present, more than 77% of the sales of sweeping robots come from e-commerce channels.
Relevant experts said that the patent battle opened the field of sweeping robots this year. If domestic sweeping robots want to win the market competition and no longer be troubled by the “patent war”, they must pay attention to the research and development and breakthrough of core technologies, actively promote the process of independent innovation, and use leading quality and excellent service to gain consumer recognition and obtain “” Battlefield” victory.
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