Huaxi Securities: Lawn Mowing Robots Accelerate Penetration, North American Market Expected to Achieve Breakthrough

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Huaxi Securities released a research report stating that traditional lawn mowers have a short operating time and a small coverage area, making them more suitable for European lawns. In contrast, American yards are larger and more complex, with the current penetration rate of lawn mowers being less than 6%. New technologies such as boundary-less systems are expected to meet the demand for "high power, large area coverage, and long battery life" in American yards. On the cost side, the comprehensive cost of lawn mowers is significantly lower than that of traditional outdoor power equipment (OPE). On the channel side, in 2025, major North American retailer Lowe's will cooperate with several domestic lawn mower brands, such as Ninebot and Shanke, reflecting a gradual increase in market acceptance in the United States.

The main points of Huaxi Securities are as follows:

Boundary-less technology opens up the ceiling for lawn mowers

The application of boundary-less and other technologies significantly enhances the user experience of lawn mowers, and is expected to drive approximately threefold global sales growth. Boundary-less lawn mowers use virtual boundaries and are equipped with intelligent positioning and planning functions, improving efficiency by over 80% compared to traditional random collision lawn mowers, resulting in neater mowing. At the same time, users can remotely control the mower through a mobile application and create virtual boundary maps. The replacement products for lawn mowers mainly include riding mowers and push mowers. Assuming that lawn mowers replace 15% and 30% of riding and push mowers respectively, this corresponds to a potential sales penetration space of approximately 410,000 and 4.8 million units, corresponding to 1.3 million units of lawn mowers sold in 2024, indicating about threefold growth potential.

Lawn mowers have substantial gross margin space, and with rapid industry sales growth, prices are expected to continue to decline quickly. It is estimated that the cost of a mid-to-high-end RTK + visual lawn mower exceeds 3,000 yuan, with navigation, obstacle avoidance, and amortization costs accounting for over 60%.

On the production side: The RTK sensor module is expected to decrease by 40% within 2-3 years due to the scale effect of industry expansion and independent research and development by leading companies; the initial fixed investment could be as high as 100 million yuan, and rapid sales growth is expected to significantly enhance scale effects.

On the brand side: Ninebot's gross margin for its robot business in 2023, H1 2024, and 2024 is expected to be 53%, 56%, and 51% respectively, with gross margin mainly contributed by lawn mower products. Compared to the approximately 30% gross margin of other leading OPE brands during the same period, the gross margin of the lawn mower business is higher by 5-20 percentage points.

Boundary-less products have cost-performance advantages and are expected to achieve breakthroughs in the North American market

Function: Traditional lawn mowers have a short operating time and a small coverage area, making them more suitable for European lawns; however, American yards are larger and more complex, with the current penetration rate of lawn mowers being less than 6%. New technologies such as boundary-less systems are expected to meet the demand for "high power, large area coverage, and long battery life" in American yards.

Cost: The comprehensive cost of lawn mowers is significantly lower than that of traditional OPE equipment. Lawn mowers first save on labor costs (the opportunity cost of residents' personal time and high hiring costs), and secondly, the current price of boundary-less lawn mowers has generally dropped to $1,000, compared to $500-$1,000 for boundary lawn mowers, highlighting the cost-performance advantage after considering the savings on wiring costs Channel: In 2025, North American retail giant Lowe's will collaborate with several domestic lawn mower robot brands, such as Ninebot and Sunseeker, reflecting the gradually increasing recognition in the U.S. market.

Landscape: Domestic Brands Actively Entering the Market

From 2021 to 2022, there has been a surge of new entrants and startups in the domestic market, with emerging brands like Ninebot, Songling, Zhaomi, and Ecovacs leading the way in bulk shipments and setting industry trends. Additionally, new players like Sunseeker and Kuma Technology have also entered the market. The main market players can be categorized into three types: companies that originated from garden tools such as Husqvarna, Bosch, TORO, and Qianfeng; new players with a background in smart robotics like Ecovacs, iRobot, Ninebot, and Zhaomi; and emerging companies like Songling Robotics and Sunseeker Technology.

Investment Recommendations

It is recommended to pay attention to companies involved in the lawn mower robot sector, including Ecovacs (603486.SH), Ninebot (689009.SH), Qianfeng Holdings (02285), and Roborock (688169.SH).

Risk Warning

Risks include downstream demand falling short of expectations, intensified industry competition, failure to secure orders as anticipated, fluctuations in upstream raw material costs, rising shipping costs and delays in cargo delivery due to port congestion, risks associated with new technology iterations, deviations in industry space calculations, and risks of third-party data distortion (data may not represent the true state of the industry, with delays or untimely updates, as well as risks from changes in tariffs or trade policies)