(edited by Zhou Xinyi / Jiang Yuyi / tr. by Phil Newell)
In the past, the "sweeping grass" was at a low ebb.
On April 27th, Corworth announced that it had revenue of 15.5 billion yuan and net profit of 6% in 2023.Piggyrichesmegawaysredtiger1.2 billion yuan, down 63.96 percent from the same period last year.
In particular, in the fourth quarter, there was a substantial loss of 38 million yuan.
Capital markets vote with their feet.
By the close of trading on April 29th, the company's market capitalization was 26.3 billion yuan, down from 144.5 billion yuan at its peak.
The rich father and son, who started in Suzhou, are worth riding the roller coaster.
The wealth of Qian Dongqi and his son Qian Cheng, founder of Corvos, hit 57 billion yuan in 2021, which has dropped to 16 billion yuan on the 2024 Hurun Global Rich list.
"A frank review of the lack of strategy." Qian Cheng tried to turn the tide.
He has been at the helm of the "Corworth" brand for four years. After taking office, Qian Cheng defined the Coworth strategy as "globalization, multi-category, and high-tech", hoping to break the problem.
Exchange price for quantity
The enthusiasm of the floor sweeper diminishes, and the money pressure increases.
Kovos three major business sectors, service robots, intelligent life appliances, clean life appliances OEM, the first two parts are revenue priorities, corresponding to "Kovos" and "Tian Ke" two own brands.
The small money is always in charge of "Corvus".
In 2023, service robots contributed 7.741 billion yuan in revenue, propping up half the sky, but declining year on year.Piggyrichesmegawaysredtiger1.67%.
First, due to the general environment, the core technology is stereotyped, the consumer pain point is basically broken, the product function enters the stage of micro-innovation, and the market growth rate of floor-sweeping robot and floor washer slows down.
Kovos, the boss of the track, is also hard to sell.
Last year, sales of service robots were 2.841 million, down 8.9 per cent from a year earlier.
Red Sea market, the volume is serious, brand homogenization competition. The main selling price of floor-sweeping robot products sank to 3500-4000 yuan, and the average online retail price dropped from 4520 yuan to 4073 yuan.
Qian Cheng is also "price for quantity".
It has been revealed that from January to June last year, the average online and offline retail prices of Kovos floor-sweeping robots were 3788 yuan and 4457 yuan respectively, down 8.4 percent and 15.7 percent from the same period last year.
In 2023, the gross profit margin of the service robot sector was 42.69%, down 2.2 percentage points from the same period last year.
The weak sales volume and the average price of the superimposed products have been lowered, which has put a lot of pressure on Qian's father and son. They admit that there is something missing in the product layout in the low-and medium-price range, and decisively adjust their business strategy.
Since the beginning of the year, Qian Cheng team has released Coworth X2combo, X2S, X5 PRO and other new products in the mainstream price band of 3000-4000 yuan one after another.
For example, Dibao T30 series products, equipped with spirit gap, spirit entanglement and other technologies, solve the cost of edge cleaning, hair winding treatment and other pain points.
It has been revealed that the series has been on the market for 15 days, with sales exceeding 50,000 units.
A "21CBR" reporter noticed in the Covos Tmall flagship store that the T30 PRO was priced at 5599 yuan, with a discounted price of 3999 yuan, showing that "tens of thousands of units have been sold throughout the network."
After the bottom in the fourth quarter, the results improved.
From January to March, the company had revenue of 3.474 billion yuan and net profit of 298 million yuan, an increase of 3,449.73 percent over the previous month.
Shoulder heavy responsibilities
"Why does it feel that the industry is not growing as fast as it was in the last 10 years? Do all the products look the same? It is because there is not enough innovation. "
Qian Cheng hopes that Kovos can make a breakthrough from the aspects of software, hardware, electromechanical control, algorithm and so on.
For example, the new Dibao X5 PRO is equipped with YIKO Voice 2.0 + model and AINA2.0 artificial intelligence algorithm model.
Boss Qian spends a lot of money on research and development. In the past year, Covos spent 824 million yuan on research and development, an increase of 10.8 per cent over last year.
From 2020 to 2023, the company's sales expense rate rose all the way, from 21.58% to 34%, spending 5.3 billion yuan last year.
Some analysts believe that the marginal efficiency of marketing is low due to the tilt of resources to new categories that are more niche.
"the average gross profit margin of the floor-sweeping robot industry will only get lower and lower, and Kovos may not only reduce profits, but also revenue in the later stage." Home appliance industry analyst Liang Zhenpeng believes.
The important task of finding a new growth pole lies on the shoulders of the post-90s generation.
The "enterprise second generation" was born in August 1990. After returning from studying abroad in 2012, he joined the e-commerce department of Corvos and was promoted to deputy general manager and vice chairman of Covos Robotics.
When Coworth went public, Qian Cheng rang the bell hand in hand with his father.
In 2021, Qian Cheng also served as CEO of Covos Service Robot, responsible for strategy and management.
At that time, the development momentum of the company was strong, and in July of the same year, the market capitalization of Corworth soared to 144.5 billion yuan, which was called "sweeping grass".
"my father is a person who can give me space because he is an entrepreneur and he knows that if one wants to grow up, he has to go through some difficulties."
In the fourth year of succession, Qian Cheng, as he said, is being honed.
Bet on overseas
After taking over Covos, Qian Cheng defined the brand strategy as "globalization, multi-category, high-tech".
This year, he personally took DEEBOT X2 COMBO, which combines sweeping robot with hand-held vacuum cleaner, and WINBOT W2 OMNI, a window-cleaning robot, to CES2024, the world's largest consumer electronics show.
Pennies always value the global market.
After three years in charge of the brand, he led the establishment of the International Division, responsible for export business, adopted the "difficult before easy" strategy, first entered the United States, Japan, Germany and other developed markets, and set up online and offline sales channels.
In November last year, Qian Cheng led the team to open an overseas headquarters office in Singapore.
"in the Southeast Asian market, Kovos has set up an account in TikTok and cooperated with Amazon, Shopee, Lazada and other e-commerce platforms." Kovos introduced it to the "21CBR" reporter.
"if you look at the floor cleaning industry, China may only account for 1/3 of the world." Qian Cheng said.
Last year, the company's overseas income was 6.52 billion yuan, an increase of 25.76% over the same period last year, accounting for more than 40% of the total revenue.
Among them, Tim can increase by more than 40% year-on-year.
Promote new products according to local conditions. For example, Kovos launched lawn mowers for the European and American markets.
Ordinary lawnmowers on the market are random mowers, unintelligent, and Corworth's products do logical cutting, turning diesel drivers into pure electricity to improve noise and efficiency.
Qian Cheng also focuses on the window cleaning robot. "I have great confidence in it. Basically no one in the domestic market or the global market is doing this category."
The W1S and W2 window treasures include intelligent rock climbing systems, intelligent obstacle avoidance systems and intelligent edge detection systems to prevent machines from falling from a high altitude, as well as intelligent path planning, intelligent obstacle avoidance, and bilateral cross high-pressure water spraying to improve the efficiency of window cleaning work. Technology.
"Dibao X2 COMBO" replaces the sweeping robot to clean furniture and sofa seats with extremely low chassis in family scenes.
Xiaoqian has set a goal to build 2-3 product lines with a scale of more than 2 billion yuan in the next 2-3 years.
