Domestic robots are aggressively reaping profits from foreign customers.
Actually, beyond the concept of embodied intelligence, robots have been widely used in various scenarios, such as unmanned logistics vehicles, unmanned sanitation vehicles, and floor-cleaning robots...
However, lawn mowing robots, a product that is somewhat unfamiliar to most people living in China, have become the mainstream products for domestic robot enterprises to enter the European and American markets.
To sum it up in one sentence, they are selling like hotcakes.
According to customs data, Germany, the UK, and the US are the major consumer markets for lawn mowers exported from China.
However, as the threshold for market entry gradually rises, this seemingly promising blue ocean has now turned red.
01 Is a bloody battle imminent?
Last month, the founder of domestic lawn mowing robot company Senhe Innovation posted an open letter on a social platform, stating that despite all efforts to promote product delivery, the company was unable to sustain its operations due to factors such as an unexpected team restructuring, manufacturing difficulties, and capital constraints. It announced its dissolution.
At the beginning of this month, another robot company submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to the prospectus, this company, whose vision technology covers over 6 million robots, has now made the lawn mowing robot business its second growth curve. It sold 15,000 lawn mowing robots in just five months this year.
There are also companies that have signed large orders for over one million units of components.
In May, RoboSense and Mammotion Technology announced a strategic cooperation. The two parties will jointly develop high-end intelligent lawn mowing robot solutions, with the first batch of orders agreeing to cooperate on 1.2 million units within three years.
RoboSense uses its self-developed chips and lidar in lawn mowing robots, which can help the robots accurately detect the terrain and identify over 99% of obstacles in the yard. It can cover an area of up to 1,500 square meters in complex yards.
And this is based on automotive-grade all-solid-state lidar technology.
Lawn mowing robots are quite niche products in China. After all, most residential buildings in China are high-rises, and there is no need for lawn mowing. However, overseas, lawn mowing and maintenance are necessities, and it takes a lot of time to take care of the lawn each time.
The annual shipment of traditional push and riding lawn mowers is about 11.5 million units. The pain points lie in the high labor and time costs. Introducing intelligent lawn mowing robots essentially aims to transform the lawn mowing scenario and achieve automation. Floor-cleaning robots are a similar reference.
Chinese lawn mower enterprises have actually gone global. Domestic lawn mower products have been sold worldwide and have become the invisible king of overseas product categories.
According to public data from the General Administration of Customs of China, in terms of the number of lawn mowers exported from China, Germany has the largest export volume in the European market, followed by the UK, and the US ranks third.
While the industry's popularity continues to rise, the alternating events of joy and sorrow usually mean significant structural changes.
Why can some enterprises quickly enter the market and even approach listing, while some companies that have been dormant for several years are on the verge of dissolution?
With the explosive growth of the courtyard economy, as user demand surges, each company is trying to seize the market with technological patents and vertical scenario solutions. The lidar mentioned earlier is used to define the upgrade and iteration of lawn mowing robot products from the perspective of perception solutions.
However, for many startups, the money is not endless. Startups usually target product pain points for improvement and propose innovative solutions. For example, Senhe Innovation, mentioned earlier, was the first to use reel blades in lawn mowers, improving on the problems of uneven lawn cuts and flying grass clippings associated with traditional rotating blades.
However, without sufficient order volume or a mature business to provide cash flow, a company has no bargaining power with the supply chain. Product performance and yield usually also go through a climbing process, all of which are factors contributing to the increase in overall machine costs.
As an intelligent hardware track, whether a company can survive depends on the bucket's short-board effect. Technology, supply chain, channels... Any weakness in any link may become the last straw that breaks the overall efficiency.
The fall of star lawn mowing robot enterprises does not mean that the industry has reached an inflection point.
According to a statistical report by Statista, there are approximately 250 million courtyard gardens globally. The US, with 100 million yards, accounts for 40% of the global market. Europe has 80 million yards and is the second-largest consumer segment after North America.
Among them, the penetration rate of intelligent lawn mowing robots in Europe is between 10% and 15%, while in the US, it is only 2%. Many users still use traditional handheld lawn mowers.
However, in recent years, more and more enterprises have entered this track. According to incomplete statistics from GGII, from 2019 to 2024, a total of 32 domestic enterprises entered the market one after another.
Some companies have even entered the listing echelon and will continue to increase their investment in the lawn mowing robot market in the future.
An industry insider commented, "The lawn mowing robot market in 2025 will be a bloody battle. By 2026, the market structure will basically be finalized. If you can't stand out this year, you probably won't have a chance."
What are the characteristics of this new track, and how can a company survive?
What kind of competitive landscape do the new entrants form?
02 Foreigners Fall in Love with the New "Mowing" Method
Similar to floor-cleaning robots, the iteration of lawn mowing equipment is going through a stage from manual operation to full automation.
The early forms of lawn mowers included handheld, riding, and walking types. In terms of power sources, they have also evolved from manual, fuel-powered to wireless products powered by lithium batteries.
The driving factors for the development of lawn mowing robots are that outdoor lawns in Europe and the US need to be cleaned and maintained. Fully automatic robots not only save the time homeowners spend on lawn maintenance but also have a significantly lower average cost over the product's lifecycle compared to hiring workers.
70% - 80% of European and American families maintain their lawns independently. There is also a strong DIY culture. Some high-end residential areas even hire gardeners for lawn maintenance, with annual expenses ranging from as low as $100 to nearly $1,500.
The price of a high-end lawn mowing robot is about $2,000 - $5,000. Although the initial purchase cost is relatively high, considering a 5 - 6 year usage cycle, it saves a large amount of money.
From a technical perspective, early lawn mowing robots were buried-wire products. They defined the mowing area by burying wires in the lawn. However, this required pre-burying wires in advance and was costly, only suitable for small gardens.
Compared to the US, European gardens have a smaller average area and are relatively enclosed with fence boundaries. Therefore, the products were introduced into the market more quickly.
A Swedish veteran lawn mowing robot enterprise invented the first solar-powered lawn mowing robot in 1995, laying the technical foundation and taking the lead in enjoying the market dividends. Lawn mowing robots in the European market account for over 70% of the global market share.
In 2024, the global shipment of lawn mowers was about 1.2 million units, mainly dominated by veteran lawn mower enterprises such as Husqvarna and Positec, which together accounted for about 75% of the market share.
In the domestic lawn mower industry, some traditional enterprises have been deeply involved for many years, such as Positec, Greenworks, Daye Co., Ltd., and Husqvarna-Chuan Group Holdings. They have all accumulated strong technical strength and have a place in the global market.
After 2021, some emerging Internet enterprises began to enter the market. For example, Ninebot, a Xiaomi ecosystem enterprise focusing on short-distance transportation and service robots, and even some technology enterprises are regarded as potential market entrants due to their technical capabilities, such as DJI and Ecovacs.
Meanwhile, a new round of iteration is underway for the technical route around perception solutions.
Burying wires requires labor costs, especially for large lawns, and it is more expensive. The mowing route lacks precise algorithmic planning, so the efficiency is relatively low. Similar to floor-cleaning robots, intelligent lawn mowing robots also need strong positioning, path planning, and obstacle avoidance capabilities.
In September 2021, Navimow, the world's first ultra-silent boundary-free intelligent lawn mowing robot, was launched by Navimow under Ninebot. It uses RTK positioning technology and has achieved an important breakthrough in the industry. The revenue of this business has maintained a rapid growth momentum in recent years.
Ecovacs first used UWB ultra-wideband wireless carrier communication technology in its lawn mowing robot products in 2022. However, since UWB still requires multi-point deployment in practical applications, Ecovacs' subsequent products switched to the RTK solution with higher positioning accuracy.
Currently, the perception solution of positioning technology (RTK/UWB) + vision sensors has become the mainstream, but there are still some technical limitations, such as the need for manual base station deployment and positioning deviation caused by signal interference.
Automotive-grade lidar can effectively improve the perception ability of lawn mowing robots in complex terrains and weather conditions. With the rapid cost reduction of lidar in recent years, its natural 3D mapping and obstacle avoidance capabilities effectively meet consumers' needs for lightweight, convenient, and more reliable intelligent lawn mowers, promoting the lidar fusion solution to become an important solution option.
Relying on its cooperation with Livox, Dreame became the first manufacturer to use lidar in lawn mowing robots. In 2024, Dreame launched its second-generation product, the A2, which introduced the lidar + vision solution for the first time. As of February 8, 2025, Dreame announced that the cumulative shipment of its lawn mowing robot products had exceeded 100,000 units.
According to institutions, in the lawn mower market, the current scale of the lawn mowing robot industry has reached $2.5 billion, with a sales penetration rate of only 12.5% and a sales volume penetration rate of 4 - 5%.
As the next form of outdoor power tools, both traditional veteran enterprises and cross-border new players who have achieved success in other product categories regard it as the next automated battlefield. The competition is not only reflected in technology and cost but also in channels.
However, different from floor-cleaning robots, due to installation, usage, and after-sales service requirements, the sales channels of lawn mowing robots are mainly offline, and offline channels are firmly controlled by traditional brands such as Husqvarna. Online sales only account for 20% - 30%. On e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Ninebot (under Segway) and Mammotion (under Mammotion) lead in market share.
03 Epilogue
According to data from Grand View Research, the global lawn mower market size was $32.31 billion in 2023, and it is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 6.0% from 2023 to 2030.
The internal structure of the market has initiated an automated transformation caused by technological innovation. Among them, the market size of lawn mowing robots will exceed $15.937 billion in 2030, and the penetration rate is expected to reach 33%.
Domestic enterprises have subverted the traditional lawn mowing scenario with more excellent automation performance through the upgrade of AI and perception technology solutions.
However, the promising market is also full of competition in terms of technology and channels. Veteran enterprises that are more familiar with the European and American outdoor scenarios have been catching up to avoid being subverted, and the threshold for new entrants has also increased sharply.
Floor-cleaning robot enterprises have fought hard for more than 10 years in terms of cost, performance, etc., and finally achieved the current market structure where a few companies share the market.
Will lawn mowing robots follow the same path?
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