Behind the sale of 100,000 MOVA lawn mowing robots, a brutal war in the second half is underway | Insight Global
Editor's Note: As going global becomes an increasingly core strategy for Chinese companies, how to conquer the global market has become an extremely professional topic. In the evolution of globalization, many Chinese brands have emerged at the forefront. In view of this, 36Kr's TechInsight has launched the "Insight Global" column to explore the cutting - edge directions and opportunities for Chinese brands going global from the perspective of brand growth and change, providing thoughts and inspiration for companies venturing overseas and the industry.
This is the 48th issue of our column. In the past two years, lawn mowing robots have undoubtedly been one of the hottest stories in the capital market, attracting countless companies to enter the field. MOVA was founded in 2024, entering this clearly growing niche market with lidar technology. Targeting the small and medium - sized lawn market in Europe, with precise product definition and a "plug - and - play" differentiated experience, it achieved a shipment volume of 100,000 units within half a year. Recently, we had a chat with Li Fei, the person - in - charge of MOVA.
Author | Huang Nan
Editor | Yuan Silai
In less than four years, the battle of intelligent lawn mowing robots has entered the second half.
Since last year, lawn mowing robot manufacturers have been in a stage of collective volume growth. Ninebot's shipment volume exceeded 140,000 units in 2024; Dreame announced at the beginning of the year that its shipment volume exceeded 100,000 units; the sales volume of Agilitree and Ecovacs in the European and American markets both exceeded 80,000 units. Start - ups have also been active. Laimou Technology and Hanyang Technology have completed multiple rounds of financing in a row, and their valuations have reached hundreds of millions of yuan.
For new companies, there is only a narrow entrance to enter the market.
However, in this seemingly saturated market, within just half a year, an intelligent hardware brand MOVA with a shipment volume of over 100,000 units has emerged.
MOVA focuses on a boundary - less intelligent lawn mowing solution centered around lidar, targeting the niche scenario of small and medium - sized lawns.
According to reports from Grand View Research and others, the global intelligent lawn mower market size was approximately between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion in 2023. It is expected that by 2030, the market size will reach between $6 billion and $10 billion, maintaining an annual compound growth rate of 12% - 20% in the next 5 - 10 years.
Currently, the penetration rate of such products in the global lawn mowing machinery market is still less than 2%. If intelligent lawn mowing robots can fully replace existing equipment in the future, the market penetration rate is expected to increase to 17%, corresponding to a potential scale of over 300 billion yuan.
"Actually, the European market is not that 'competitive'. It just seems 'competitive' to some extent compared to the North American grasslands," Li Fei, the person - in - charge of MOVA, told 36Kr. "Now, from the boundary - based to the boundary - less approach, manufacturers are still dividing up the share of the traditional garden tool market and converting existing users."
MOVA lawn mowing robot (Source: Company)
This seems to be a counter - intuitive judgment, because the general perception in the industry is that Europe is far more competitive than the United States due to its lower entry barriers.
In fact, the average penetration rate of lawn mowers in Europe ranges from 10% to 30%, showing significant differences in different countries. In regions with high consumption power such as Germany and Northern Europe, the penetration rate of intelligent lawn mowers is relatively high, reaching 25% - 30% in some countries.
Based on the judgment of market trends, MOVA did not adopt the mainstream vision or RTK solutions. Its first product chose the more expensive but more accurate lidar technology route. Compared with the mainstream solutions, the cost of lidar is hundreds of yuan higher. As MOVA enters the market at this time, it needs to break through with differentiation in terms of technology and product strength. This can be regarded as a necessary cost.
This is also the survival rule that Chinese hardware companies going global must face today: in the increasingly competitive overseas market, they must invest in more challenging things.
In this game, small and medium - sized players can no longer afford the chips. In the future, among the leading companies, the one that shows the first weakness will be mercilessly eliminated.
Searching for the Blue Ocean
MOVA chose to enter the intelligent lawn mower market from the small and medium - sized grasslands in Europe because of its differentiated judgment on the market competition pattern and technology route.
Currently, the growth of intelligent lawn mowers mainly comes from the replacement of the existing market of traditional lawn mowing equipment. In terms of user composition, it can be roughly divided into two groups. One is the existing users who upgrade from buried - wire products to boundary - less equipment, and the other is the new users who have never used lawn mowing robots.
In Europe, local users generally have a high level of awareness and sensitivity to function iteration of intelligent lawn mowing robots, which is partly due to the market education of early buried - wire lawn mowers.
In the past, traditional boundary - based lawn mowers all adopted the buried - wire solution, which not only had a complex installation process but also required high costs. The wiring fees charged by professional construction workers for on - site installation usually ranged from 150 to 300 euros. At the same time, most manufacturers adopted a rich SKU strategy, strictly segmenting by area, such as 500, 800, 1000 square meters, etc., to meet the needs of different users. However, once the layout of the user's yard changes, the boundary wire needs to be re - buried.
This group of users has a strong expectation to free their hands. They not only have a clear demand for automated lawn mowing but also have a higher acceptance of function iterations that can simplify operations and improve the experience. They are the first - batch users of intelligent lawn mowing robots.
Chinese intelligent lawn mowing robots seem to be products of another era. They completely eliminate the complex pre - installation steps, allowing users to use them right out of the box. They can also solve the problem of insufficient flexibility caused by fixed boundaries in traditional models.
The usually conservative European market has also seen some ripples.
MOVA launched two models, MOVA 600 and MOVA 1000, targeting small courtyard lawns in Germany, Switzerland, etc., and medium - sized lawns in France, Poland. Official data shows that in the second quarter of 2025 alone, the monthly sales volume in Germany exceeded 3,000 units; during the French Days in France, the sales volume of MOVA intelligent lawn mowers on the Amazon channel also exceeded 1,000 units.
MOVA operating in a highly occluded environment (Source: Company)
MOVA has performed excellently because it was willing to invest in better - performing technology routes from the start.
Currently, the mainstream solutions for intelligent lawn mowing robots include pure vision, vision + RTK, lidar, etc.
Among them, the pure vision solution has a lower cost, but it has a long training cycle, and its effectiveness is limited by light sensitivity and recognition stability. Although the vision + RTK solution has high positioning accuracy and good reliability, it has the defect of being unable to receive signals in shadow - occluded areas and requires pole installation, manual equipment installation, and debugging. If the network RTK solution (NRTK) that does not require pole installation is used, users need to continuously pay for signal service fees.
The lidar + vision solution performs outstandingly in terms of perception accuracy, environmental adaptability, and path planning. However, due to the high cost of the lidar itself, it is difficult to control the overall price of the machine within the mainstream price range, so it is not the first choice for most manufacturers.
MOVA is one of the few manufacturers that adopted the lidar solution in its first product. According to third - party tests, MOVA's machine can complete mapping of a 1000 - square - meter area in only 3.5 minutes. The 3D lidar carried by its two products can achieve centimeter - level positioning accuracy.
3D lidar (Source: Company)
Since the market technology solutions have not been unified yet, when facing products priced at 999 euros, channel partners are more inclined to introduce more differentiated brands for testing. At the same time, user feedback and the gradually formed brand recognition effect will also drive channel partners to actively cooperate with corresponding brands.
MOVA seized this time window. The price to pay was real investment in the early stage.
Previously, the person - in - charge of a lidar manufacturer told 36Kr that although the lawn mowing robot industry chain has gradually matured, in the foreseeable future, the cost reduction will still be a relatively slow process. At the same time, large - scale production may bring cost - reduction effects, but it is difficult to reproduce the significant price drop of vehicle - mounted lidar in the past.
However, the supply chain follows the law of marginal effect, and MOVA's entry will bring certain variables. Li Fei told 36Kr, "It is expected that within two to three years, the cost of the lidar solution is expected to be lower than that of the RTK module."
The Giants are Emerging
MOVA's route is actually not very replicable.
The impact of Chinese intelligent lawn mowing robots on Europe and the United States has entered a plateau period. As the mainstream routes converge and the category dividends fade, the European lawn mowing robot market is undergoing a new round of reshuffle.
The technological leap from "boundary - based" to "boundary - less" has brought disruptive innovation to the lawn mowing robot industry, giving rise to leading companies such as Agilitree (Kuma Power), Ninebot (Weilan Continent), Dreame, and Ecovacs.
After the competition pattern of the giants becomes clearer, the window for innovative companies is closing rapidly.
"For other start - ups, since last year, the difficulty of market access has increased significantly, and the situation is even more severe this year," Li Fei pointed out to 36Kr.
In the traditional camp, Husqvarna, Positec, and Stihl dominate with their deep - seated accumulations. In the boundary - less intelligent category, existing leading brands including MOVA have basically controlled market resources and user recognition.
MOVA lawn mowing robot in a dim and complex environment (Source: Company)
"New enterprises face extremely high barriers if they want to enter the mainstream channel system. Users are more inclined to choose mature and reliable products. If a new brand cannot achieve 'generational - level leadership' in performance or experience, it is difficult to shake users' trust in existing products."
For leading manufacturers, the focus of competition has shifted from pure product - strength competition to how to build differentiated brand labels and clear user recognition.
Li Fei believes that leading manufacturers must anchor clear and differentiated labels for their brands to firmly grasp users' minds. For example, Ninebot is the "first RTK + vision solution", Mammotion has a "four - wheel drive power system" suitable for multiple terrains, and MOVA has the "3D lidar solution" with plug - and - play capabilities.
Although these labels will be iterated, they can help users quickly establish brand recognition in the early stage. When updated, existing users have already established trust, and new labels can also attract new users, thus significantly shortening the brand cultivation cycle.
However, it can be seen that the current lawn mowing robot market is highly segmented, and the differentiated labels based on functions and scenarios tend to be saturated. It is becoming increasingly difficult for start - ups to dig out new labels with sufficient recognition.
In addition, the accumulation from past businesses has also become a moat.
Take MOVA as an example. Its intelligent cleaning products officially entered the European market in September 2024, covering multiple countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. They have entered online platforms such as Amazon and brand - owned independent websites, as well as mainstream retail channels such as MediaMarkt, Unieuro, and Electro Depot.
The boundary cutting function of MOVA 1000 (Source: Company)
Based on the understanding of the original product line and the market performance of a series of products, it can provide a trust endorsement for the launch of subsequent new product categories. Therefore, when MOVA launched its lawn mowing robot, channel partners also showed a higher willingness to cooperate, thus effectively extending the brand influence across different categories.
Now, the wave of intelligent replacement of lawn mowers has become a full - scale war. Companies with capital and technological strength can quickly get on the right track, while others will struggle.
36Kr has learned that in addition to the European market, MOVA is trying to expand its product line to cover different lawn scenarios. The lawn mowing robot for the North American market is under development, and localization will be carried out in key dimensions such as cutting height, motor performance, and lawn adaptability.
Li Fei believes that the intelligent lawn mower market is in a critical transition stage from the "function exploration period" to the "high - frequency and essential scenario popularization period". In the future, the trend will be that pure vision solutions will be used for lawns below 500 square meters, and lidar plus vision will be used for lawns between 500 - 3000 square meters. In August, MOVA launched the first intelligent lawn mower ViAX series equipped with AI binocular vision technology, and in September, it will launch an intelligent lawn mower with lidar plus AI binocular vision for large - scale lawns in Europe.