Chinese smart cleaning giants are eyeing the new "lucrative" lawn mowing market, aiming to reap profits from the backyards of Europe and the United States.
Since the second half of last year, lawn mowing robots have gradually become a popular category in the intelligent cleaning market. Moving from indoor spaces to gardens, the technology of intelligent cleaning robots has found a broader range of applications.
According to IDC data, in the first half of this year, the global shipment volume of smart home cleaning robots reached 15.352 million units, a year-on-year increase of 33%. Among them, the shipment volume of lawn mowing robots was 2.343 million units, a year-on-year surge of 327.2%.
Compared with the floor sweeping robot market, which has become a "red ocean" with a more solidified manufacturer landscape, the global lawn mowing robot market remains a "blue ocean."
Data shows that there are approximately 250 million private gardens globally. Among them, the United States has about 100 million, and Europe has over 80 million. Together, Europe and the United States account for 72% of the global total.
(Image source: Welan Robotics)
As a high-frequency and essential need, the lawns of private gardens in Europe and the United States have long been occupied by various types of lawn mowers, such as handheld, manual/electric, gasoline-powered, and riding lawn mowers. Data shows that the annual sales volume of riding lawn mowers in the US market alone reaches 2.5 million units, and the annual sales volume of lawn mowers in the European and American markets exceeds 10 million units.
On the other hand, the penetration rate of the lawn mowing robot category in the European and American markets is still relatively low. In the European market, it is between 10% and 30%, and in the US market, it is less than 10%.
Driven by these two factors, some domestic manufacturers entered the lawn mowing robot field several years ago. With the increasingly hot market performance of this category, more domestic manufacturers have started to pour in in the past two years.
Boundary-free becomes the mainstream, and early bird players have a first-mover advantage
As early as 2021, Welan Robotics, a subsidiary of Ninebot, launched the Segway Navimow H series of lawn mowing robots integrated with Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) technology.
The addition of RTK technology brings centimeter-level navigation and positioning accuracy. Paired with visual fencing and intelligent obstacle avoidance technology, the lawn mowing robot can automatically complete the entire work process within the scope of the home garden without a physical boundary line.
This has also become a key technological innovation for traditional lawn mowing robots to evolve into intelligent ones, giving rise to a new sub-category of "boundary-free" lawn mowing robots.
Compared with traditional "buried wire" lawn mowing robots, the new "boundary-free" lawn mowing robots do not require pre-buried boundary lines during operation. They are simple and quick to install, and the subsequent maintenance costs are also greatly reduced.
(Image source: Welan Robotics)
In addition to RTK technology, many manufacturers have started to apply lidar positioning technology in recent years. The RTK + vision fusion positioning system and the lidar + vision fusion positioning system have become the mainstream technical solutions for boundary-free lawn mowing robots. Some manufacturers have also begun to promote the triple fusion positioning system that combines RTK, lidar, and vision.
The introduction of RTK/lidar/vision fusion positioning systems and intelligent obstacle avoidance technology has enabled the application of "virtual electronic fences" and completely eliminated the most cumbersome "physical wire fence" step in traditional lawn mowing robots. After being able to perform relevant work fully automatically and efficiently, the explosion of the boundary-free lawn mowing robot category has become inevitable.
(Image source: Welan Robotics)
According to IDC data, the proportion of boundary-free lawn mowing robots, which was only about 35% last year, soared to about 65% in the first half of this year. The new "boundary-free" has replaced the traditional "buried wire" type and become the new mainstream in the lawn mowing robot market.
As an industry pioneer, Welan Robotics is currently the brand with the largest market share in the global boundary-free lawn mowing robot market. Another "early bird" player, Komai Technology (under SONGNENG ROBOT), ranks second.
From indoor to outdoor, intelligent cleaning giants are fiercely competing in the lawn mowing market
With the increasing market enthusiasm, leading brands in the intelligent cleaning market such as MOVA, Dreame, Ecovacs, and Roborock are also making every effort to expand the market for the sub-category of lawn mowing robots, which is regarded as a "new growth pole."
Actually, there is a considerable "overlap" between the new technologies applied in "boundary-free" lawn mowing robots and the core technologies of categories such as floor sweeping robots. This has also enabled more enterprises in the floor sweeping robot and intelligent cleaning market to "seamlessly" expand the application of their core technologies to the lawn mowing robot category.
At the IFA 2025 in September, Lei Technology saw many such products.
Different from the RTK technology always used by Welan Robotics, the newly launched LiDAX Ultra AWD series of lawn mowing robots by MOVA adopt high-precision 3D LiDAR lidar technology, paired with an AI binocular vision fusion navigation system, which can achieve 70-meter long-distance detection and a 360° all-round field of vision.
MOVA lawn mowing robot (photographed at the Lei Technology IFA 2025 site)
MOVA's "ambition" is not limited to the lawn mowing robot category. It also aims to play the role of a steward responsible for the entire garden's care and management. Another garden care robot called Master X is equipped with a robotic arm. When folded, it is 44.5 cm long; when unfolded, it is 77 cm long; and the farthest cleaning range is more than 1 m. The hand device of the robotic arm can be replaced among a gripper, a grass trimmer head, and a grass cutter disc.
MOVA garden care robot (photographed at the Lei Technology IFA 2025 site)
Roborock's lawn mowing robot focuses on the application of AI vision. It can accurately identify people, pets, gardening tools, etc. on the lawn. It can even distinguish up to 35 types of small animals and more than 100 types of common obstacles. It has evolved from simple obstacle avoidance to understanding the situation and then adopting different coping strategies: it can gently bypass a ball, keep a certain safe distance from an animal, and pause work when it meets its owner.
Roborock lawn mowing robot (photographed at the Lei Technology IFA 2025 site)
For Dreame, its technological advantages and self-developed capabilities in the field of high-speed digital motors can be well applied to lawn mowing robots, which have much higher requirements for motor performance than vacuum cleaners and other categories. Thus, while creating high-performance lawn mowing robots, it can also control costs at a lower level.
Dreame lawn mowing robot (photographed at the Lei Technology IFA 2025 site)
It is worth mentioning that, based on Lei Technology's on-site observation, almost all the lawn mowing robot booths at IFA 2025 emphasized the "80% terrain coverage" ability, which relies on the All-Wheel Drive (AWD) technology, which has become a standard feature of flagship new products.
The new lawn mowing robots of MOVA, Dreame, Roborock, and Komai are all equipped with independent drive motors on all four wheels, thus obtaining stronger grip and climbing capabilities.
Komai lawn mowing robot (photographed at the Lei Technology IFA 2025 site)
From Europe to North America, domestic manufacturers are about to go to CES 2026 as a group. Lei Technology predicts that boundary-free lawn mowing robots will be one of the key categories at this exhibition. At that time, the Lei Technology CES 2026 reporting team will also focus on relevant innovative products.
Is the North American market a high ground, and is the channel the biggest dilemma?
As brands in the intelligent cleaning market move from indoor spaces to outdoor gardens, the technological capabilities of lawn mowing robots have been comprehensively improved in the fierce competition. After achieving higher technological and application maturity, lawn mowing robots have the product strength to enter global garden scenarios.
However, just because a good product is developed does not mean getting a VIP entry ticket, especially in the European and American markets where the "lawn mower" industry has developed quite maturely.
For example, the more complex interest relationship between product manufacturers and channel providers in the European and American lawn mower markets has made the layout and expansion path of domestic manufacturers not so "rapid." As a result, enterprises that started to layout several years ago and those that started in the past two years can still compete on the same stage.
In the lawn mowing robot category, whose market scale has begun to skyrocket, no enterprise has achieved an absolute leading share.
Recently, Laimou Technology completed tens of millions of yuan in Series A+ financing, which is also its fourth round of financing since 2025. The cumulative financing amount this year has reached hundreds of millions of yuan. With such a strong momentum, it is quite intriguing. Gao Wangshu, the founder of Laimou Technology, is also the former co-founder of Yunjing Intelligence.
LYMOW lawn mowing robot (Image source: Laimou Technology)
Gao Wangshu said in an exclusive interview with the media that Laimou Technology's lawn mowing robots will aim to sell 100,000 units next year, with an estimated market share of over 10% in North America.
Compared with the European market, the penetration rate of the lawn mowing robot category in the North American market is much lower, which has also made it a more focused market for some latecomer players.
According to Gao Wangshu, Laimou Technology's lawn mowing robots will mainly target the large lawns of middle-class families in the suburbs of North American cities and start from online and niche channels, rather than traditional large offline channel providers such as Home Depot and Lowe's.
Market share of sales channels for lawn tools in the United States (Source: CICC Research)
However, a real problem is that even early bird players like Welan Robotics and Komai Technology, as well as players in the market like Ecovacs and Dreame, have not established a sufficiently powerful online and offline sales network in the North American and European markets. How can Laimou Technology guarantee that it can sell 100,000 lawn mowing robot products with a price of even over $2,000 in the North American market next year? Moreover, by only entering through online and niche channels, how can it persuade so many North American users to make a purchase decision in the next year?
As is well known, lawn mowing equipment, including lawn mowing robots, belongs to durable goods with a high customer unit price and a long