On April 9, 2019, Roborock’s listing application was evaluated by the committee of the Science and Technology Innovation Board
On April 9, 2019, Roborock’s listing application was evaluated by the committee of the Science and Technology Innovation Board. If Roborock successfully listed in the STIB, it would be the third listing company of Xiaomi’s ecological chain after Huami and Yunmi.
According to the prospectus of Roborock, the largest shareholders of Roborock are CHANG Jing (昌敬), who is the founder and CEO of Roborock, Shunwei Ventures III (Hong Kong) Limited, and Tianjin Jinmi Investment. The share of the later 2 shareholders are 24.7% in total, and the Shunwei was controlled by XU DALAI (许达来), who is the director of Xiaomi, and the Jinmi was controlled by LEI Jun (雷军), who is the founder and CEO of Xiaomi.
Roborock is one of the earliest companies which joins the Xiaomi ecological chain. In 2016, Roborock published “Mi+ robot” which is used to clean the floor and was sold in the Mi Mall. After that, the Mi+ robot became the star products of Mi Mall. In the Mi fan’s festival in 2018, the sales volume of Mi+ robot ranks second place which proved its popularity.
However, Roborock publishes its own brand from 2017, just like other companies in Xiaomi’s ecological chain. Currently, Roborock has the “Rock” brand, which is a high-end one, and the “Xiaowa” brand which is relatively cheaper. Both of the two brands have rapid increasing sales volume. Huami, which is another company of Xiaomi’s ecological chain, announced that it was trying to be more independent during its IPO process. Being similar to Huami, Roborock would remove the Xiaomi’s label as well.
Roborock, used to work as the products manager and technology manager in Aoyou, Microsoft and Tencent. CHANG used to invent Motu (魔图) in 2011 and finally, it was acquired by Baidu. In April 2014, CHANG met the Xiaomi ecological chain team and in August 2014, CHANG got the investment from Xiaomi and the Roborock was established at that time. According to CHANG, “Xiaomi believes that both the hardware and software of the floor cleaning robot are important, and the software might be a significant part of IoT industry. In this way, my software background became an advantage.”
With Xiaomi’s brand effect and the price advantages, Mi+ robot enjoys an amazing sales volume. By Jan 2018, the sales volume of Mi+ robot exceeded 1 million and during the past three years, the revenue of Roborock was CNY 183 million, CNY 1.1 billion and CNY 3.1 billion, which increased more than 20 times in the past 3 years. The net profit of Roborock in 2018 was CNY 308 million, while in 2016, Roborock lost CNY 11.2 million.
Currently, Roborock is trying to remove the Xiaomi’s label and publish its own brands, which is similar to Huami. Huami published its own brand Amazfit in 2016. At the end of 2017, Roborock published the Rock floor cleaning robot. 1 year later, Roborock published Xiaowa, which is a low-end robot. From 2017 to 2018, Rock’s revenue increased from CNY 100 million to CNY 1.4 billion. In 2018, the total sales revenue of the two brands occupies more than 50% of the total revenue of Roborock, which shows that Roborock’s great independence. Removing the Xiaomi’s label means the Roborock could build its own brand influence and gain more independence on the profit attribution.