Overview of the service robot industry chain: feast of giants or carnival of grassroots?

Since March of this year, we have conducted in-depth research on more than a dozen outstanding service robot companies in China. We have continued to summarize and reflect and formed this heavyweight report. On the basis of our earlier period, we still want to focus on solving several problems: Serving the robot industry What is the status quo and what are the characteristics of the industry chain? In this competition, the ultimate victory of the giant is the start-up grassroots enterprise carnival? Which market segments will have investment value in the future, and which are the areas that are easy to industrialize?

We hope that our report will provide inspiration for investors in the industry chain and will help everyone in their future investment and research. Finally, we are also grateful to the companies that have helped us in the service robot industry chain, especially those companies that have been repeatedly harassed. We regret that they have not been listed one by one. We sincerely wish everyone will be able to flourish and write this intelligence together. The era!

The core point of view:

Service robot industry chain features: technology to promote product iteration, product feedback technology innovation

The service robot industry chain currently presents several major features: (1) core technologies and products are intertwined with each other, promote each other, technology promotes product iteration, and product development feeds technological innovation; (2) gradually differentiates into platform-based enterprises and applications according to business attributes. Level companies and platform companies focus more on upstream core components and entry-level technologies, application-oriented enterprises focus on deep product development of application scenarios, and (3) from the perspective of industrial application, robot interactions in intelligent interaction and specific scenarios are developments. In terms of direction, educational robots are the largest subdivided application areas; (4) A-share service robot companies are few, and most of them go through the extension method. Most of the companies are based on grass-roots grass-roots companies.

Giants have taken the entry level technology: Global companies compete on the same stage

At present, the international giants have landed at the entry-level technology. The entry-level technologies include sensing, interaction, chips, and operating systems. In the field of voice interaction, the layout of the US giants is coming to an end, and the domestic voice battlefield is in the ascendant. Both domestic and foreign companies are formed with the leading companies such as HKUST and Nuance. In addition, most internet giants have their own voice departments, and start-up companies also have certain advantages; perception technologies. : In the world, Lidar has become the “darling” in the civilian sector, but the market share is mostly occupied by old surveying and mapping companies such as Leica in Switzerland, Optech in Canada, Riegl in Austria, and Trimble in the United States. The domestic market has just started, and some outstanding start-up companies include Huadak. Czech and Europe laser radium, radium God intelligence, Si Hao technology, North wake up photon and so on.

Segments take the lead to start: technology upgrades and cost reductions bring outbreaks

There are more than 80 types of products in service robot segmentation, of which 34 products can be found in the market. Judging from the process of industrialization, currently drones, sweeping robots, and robots in educational scenarios will take the lead in industrialization. In the process of industrialization, technological upgrading and cost reduction are two indispensable links. The sweeping robot industry is undergoing an advanced process from ODM companies to independent brands. A large number of local companies such as Cobos, Yinxing Smart, and Baole Robot have also emerged in China; as the STEAM concept deepens, the industrialization of educational robots has gradually evolved. Accelerate the emergence of excellent educational robot brands such as Youdianxuan, Kangli Youlan, and future partners.

Investment Advice

The industrialization of service robots is still at an early stage. We recommend combining the development of start-up companies to grasp investment opportunities from two perspectives: (1) Focusing on technology-based platform companies such as AI chips, OS, voice semantics, and perception, and key companies Including Horizon, Turing, Cambrian, Smart Intelligence, Cloud Know-How, Science and Technology News (Guangdong Computer Coverage), Think Technology, Jietong Huasheng, etc.; (2) Focus on the application development companies in the segmentation field. Based on a specific scenario to integrate industry resources, the companies that are focused on include Kangli Youlan, Coworth, Youyi, Future Partners, Dajiang, and Shenzhen Baole. Listed companies are advised to pay attention to giant star technology, Kangli elevators, Cixing shares, robotics, and HKUST telecom (wide-scale computer coverage).

risk warning

Market demand for service robots is lower than expected; the industry is over-competitive; core technology breakthroughs are lower than expected.

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I. Overview of the Industry Chain: Cross-winding of Products and Technology

1. Service robot industry chain includes platform-level companies and application-level companies

The characteristics of the service robot industry chain are the cross-winding of products and technologies. The upper reaches of the industry chain are component manufacturers, including chips, lidars, servos, etc. These manufacturers are typically technology-driven, and if there is a rapid outbreak in the midstream and downstream, production capacity may become a constraint; the middle reaches include voice providers and image providers. Business, this forum is relatively independent, the data and algorithm are its core competitiveness. The midstream product segment includes everything from design and processing to marketing. The brand, channel and production capacity are its core barriers. If the company doing the product can establish it through the operating system The ecological circle will become an important barrier for it. The mid-stream voice image segment and product-making segment will penetrate the consumption and circulation links of downstream scenes through virtual and physical entities. Each scene will carry out iterative mass production according to the degree of industrialization difficulty. Become a powerful engine in the upper reaches.

The growth logic of the service robot industry: breakthroughs in core technologies, product iterations, and cost reductions, followed by large-scale expansion. Platform-level companies and application-level companies are two parallel entities in the industry.

Platform-level companies focus on technology and cost. Including voice and image recognition companies, the core is to improve their AI level, core components companies such as chips, laser radar companies, etc. The core is to improve its performance and reduce its cost, while the operating system company's unified and easy development of the entrance interface is its main task. To cope with the diversified application scenarios, the problems faced by such platform-level companies are the rapid improvement of core technologies and the compatibility or rapid application of various platforms and scenarios.

The application-level company takes the realization of the scene as the core, and is based on specific market segments, such as sweeping robots, companion robots, educational robots, humanoid robots, and shopping robots. Companies in these areas will combine relevant industry integration and do innovation based on one point. The core competition elements of such companies include two aspects: (1) Product manager thinking is dominant, and robots with just-needed scenarios are developed; (2) Upstream and downstream software and hardware integration, products of platform-level manufacturers are used, and upstream hardware manufacturers are The provided hardware devices are integrated.

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