Looking back on 2018, the development of the mobile robot industry has mixed concerns, mainly including the following five changes:
1.Price war caused by many factors such as homogenization
The increase in manufacturers, the lack of industry standards, the lowest price bid, homogenization, and capital-to-gambling/mergers have made the competition in China's mobile robot industry increasingly hot in recent years, directly leading to fierce price wars. Some industries, such as the automotive logistics AGV and the e-commerce sorting AGV mentioned above, most AGV companies are meager profits or lose money to do projects, it is difficult to avoid reducing product quality, "a hammer sale", after-sales service Problems such as high prices, a series of inferior projects in the market, increased customer complaints, directly affect the healthy development of the AGV industry, and the confidence of enterprises in the application of AGV. At present, the phenomenon of relying on low prices to open up the market is still very common in the industry. The low-price strategy directly leads to the inferior currency expelling good money, which makes the early stage of technology investment enthusiasm lower, which is not conducive to the development of the industry.
2.Financing acquisitions continue to gamble
In 2018, the capital of the mobile robot industry has gradually become more rational after overheating. Capital pays more attention to those enterprises with strong technology accumulation. The old companies continue to strive for stability, and emerging companies are also striving to explore their own development path. In the process of industry development, capital also plays a pivotal role.
In 2018, only 10 of the AGV ontology manufacturers received financing. Among them, Jizhijia refreshed the global logistics robot field financing record with US$150 million, which fully demonstrated the capital's optimism for mobile robots. However, it is worth noting that, with the exception of a small number of enterprises, the amount of financing for mobile robot companies is not large. Most of them are concentrated at the level of 10 million yuan. There are not many hundreds of millions; and as in 2017, the industry in 2018 Most of the corporate finances have remained in the first two rounds, and companies that can enter the C round are basically not.
3.Industry segmentation is more obvious, and overseas market development has achieved good results.
The market segmentation characteristics of the mobile robot field are very obvious. With a certain technical accumulation and deep industry cultivation, a new model of AGV application suitable for the industry characteristics can always be explored. This new model and new demand are also the only way to expand the AGV market. Due to the different characteristics of each application scenario, the technical requirements for AGV are also different, so in some applications, some AGV enterprises have inherent advantages. At the same time, deep cultivation in the field of subdivision has become the future development goal of many enterprises, especially for some entrepreneurial companies, there is not enough capacity to explore various industry markets, so choose one or several fields to deepen A lot of business choices.
Forklift mobile robot used in the home appliance industry
With the continuous development of the domestic AGV industry, domestic AGV is also accelerating the pace of going global. To this end, some domestic companies have begun international certification to ensure access to overseas markets. At present, the AGV overseas projects have successively landed, let us see that the international competitiveness of domestic AGV enterprises is gradually increasing.
Application for loading in tractor assembly AGV
4.Try a self-operated third-party warehousing, financial leasing new business model
In the past two years, due to fierce competition in the domestic mobile robot market, many AGV manufacturers have begun to try new business models in order to expand industry influence, ensure shipments, and provide testing opportunities to improve product application reliability. One.
(1) Supporting self-operated warehouses for e-commerce companies
This business model passes the operating costs of the original e-commerce company to the AGV provider, which recovers the investment on a single commission basis. Due to the large investment in the previous period and the long period of the accounts, AGV enterprises can only solve the funding problem by financing. This model requires mobile robot manufacturers to change their business ideas and set up a warehouse operation team. The market uncertainty and professional operation experience are no small test for AGV enterprises. At the same time, e-commerce companies have the willingness to share information and low-cost requirements for operation. It also challenges the AGV companies. Whether this mode is successful or not takes time to verify.
(2) Financial leasing business model
The idea of this business model stems from the forklift enterprise, and the domestic forklift trucks have basically carried out the forklift financing leasing business. According to the current situation, most mobile robot companies are reluctant to accept this model, and only a few cases are implemented. The main reason is that compared with the standardized products such as forklifts, AGVs are currently deployed to the customer site, and technical support is required from AGV systems and professionals. Especially with the on-site process adjustment of the production enterprises, it is necessary to redeploy the AGV. Because the customer proposes new requirements, the original AGV needs to be modified or new, and the division of responsibilities and obligations between the supplier and the buyer is very troublesome.
