Reporter | Chen Chen
Editor | Jing Yu
For $1.7 billion, Amazon made another move to acquire iRobot, the leading US cleaning robot.
Compared with the previous acquisition of MGM for $8.5 billion and One Medical for $3.9 billion, this acquisition of iRobot may not be outstanding in terms of amount, but it is quite important to Amazon’s future strategy.
Why do e-commerce giants want to buy a sweeping machine company that has been gradually “struggling” in the industry and overtaken by Chinese friends at a premium of more than 20%? Behind the acquisition, what is Amazon’s real ambition?
The faucet of the sweeper is old
When iRobot launched its first product, the Roomba sweeping robot, in 2002, the company single-handedly opened up the “sweeping robot” track.
Roomba pioneered random collision navigation, allowing the machine to clean the entire house. Moreover, it also reduced the price to 1/10 of the original sweeper product, allowing the sweeping robot to truly enter the commercialization stage. Even though the price of the sweeping robot is still high at this time and it is only a niche product, iRobot quickly occupied the market in the early stage of the industry.
In the following ten years, iRobot has been the absolute leader in the European and American sweeping robot market, and you can even see it in popular American dramas like “Breaking Bad”.
However, being an industry pioneer and absolute leader is sometimes a curse, because you can make money while lying down, and product development may be left behind.
When iRobot stayed in the thrill of crazy delivery, machine vision and lidar technology gradually matured, and these advanced accessories also began to bring a new round of technological evolution to the sweeping robot. Even more frightening is that iRobot’s opponent this time has become a Chinese company.
In 2016, the products launched by Roborock Technology can be navigated by lidar, but the price is only 1699. At this time, the sweeping robot has really entered the public eye. In 2017, Ecovacs launched a sweeping and dragging machine. Since then, the sweeping and dragging machine has become the standard configuration of most Chinese sweeping robots.
iRobot’s Roomba J7+ robot vacuum | Source: Digitrends
By 2020, the industry has entered a period of intensive innovation. Yunjing Smart is shortlisted for the top 4 industry sales in 2020 with its single product “mopping self-cleaning”; Ecovacs and Stone have developed obstacle avoidance technology and algorithms to avoid the embarrassing situation of sweeping pet feces.
In 2021, the size of China’s robot vacuum cleaner market will surpass that of the United States for the first time, accounting for 32% of the market. In China, where sweeping robots are developing rapidly, the offline sales data of sweeping robots in the first half of the year showed that Ecovacs accounted for 85.32% of sales, followed by Roborock, Cloud Whale, Xiaomi, and Pursuit, but iRobot failed to squeeze in. Chinese market.
Even if Chinese opponents haven’t smashed the Quartet in their own European and American home games, iRobot’s operating conditions have already gone wrong.
In the second quarter of this year, iRobot’s revenue fell 30% year-on-year, and its operating loss increased to $63.9 million from $3 million in the same period last year. In the official response, they attributed the drop in revenue to “unexpected order reductions, delays and cancellations” by retailers in North America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as lower-than-expected direct sales to consumers.
The contraction of the North American and European markets had a direct impact on iRobot’s revenue, but the financial report also revealed an interesting data: the growth rate of the Asia-Pacific market exceeded 15%. But obviously, iRobot’s market size in the Asia-Pacific region is too small to help it in terms of revenue.
In this case, being able to “sell” to Amazon for $1.7 billion may be a better choice for the company.
Complete the “Smart Home Puzzle”
Although Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot gave a premium of 22%, given that the sweeping robot is indeed just in demand and the growth potential has always been there, this acquisition is absolutely cost-effective for the US e-commerce boss.
More important than financial calculations, taking iRobot under its command will complete Amazon’s final puzzle in the smart home space.
Amazon has always been interested in getting into the smart home space.
In December 2017, Amazon acquired Blink, a company that makes smart security cameras. At the same time, it announced a “delivery to your door” logistics delivery service — customers can choose to have a delivery person bring packages into the living room, along with its own home security camera Cloud Cam, and Amazon’s companion. Key application. The official statement also revealed that the acquisition of Blink is for the launch of security monitoring products, technical reserves and hardware support.
Eight months later, Amazon announced another acquisition in the smart home space. Ring, the manufacturer of this acquisition, represents a smart Wi-Fi doorbell with a camera. Ring, which has already partnered with Amazon, integrates some of its products with Amazon’s Alexa voice platform, allowing users to get real-time footage and chat with visitors at the door through Alexa-enabled devices.
In order to solve the network problems in the operation of smart home devices such as Ring and Echo (Amazon smart speakers), Amazon also acquired eero, a manufacturer of network WiFi equipment. A wider network system can not only support more smart devices, but also cover wider scenes and blind spots such as garages.
It was also during that time that Amazon was rumored to be working on a home robot project code-named “Vesta”. At the time, speculation about Vesta — an Echo on wheels — came true with Astro, Amazon’s 2021 launch of its home assistant robot.
Astro becomes Amazon’s big entry into the home scene. It has a face screen on its wheels and is also connected to the Alexa voice assistant, which can help users play music, remotely view scenes at home, and make calls. It is also equipped with a retractable lens and a detachable small storage box. Compared with smart speakers, the addition of mobile features broadens its usage scenarios, allowing it to undertake part of the functions of security patrols and transportation.
Astro robots patrol the home | Source: Amazon.com
However, the Astro robot’s price of $1,450 is not affordable for ordinary people. In contrast, Roomba, which also scans the home environment, is a “just-needed product” that every family can afford.
In 2018, iRobot Roombas used sensors and cameras to map the structure of the house, understand the location of furniture and avoid obstacles. The latest version of Roombas has more and more sophisticated sensors built into it for learning and mapping the house.
It is precisely because the sweeping robot has the ability to scan indoor space, the media and industry insiders analyzed that through the acquisition of iRobot, Amazon not only knows what is in your shopping cart, but even how many square meters in your home, whether you use IKEA or not . In this case, how can the product advertisement pushed to you be inaccurate?
Of course, this is only speculation. After all, as an important target of antitrust, it is not yet known whether this acquisition will receive the “blessing” of the FTC. At the same time, as important privacy data, it is not easy to directly access the user space information stored by the Roomba sweeping robot.
Moreover, Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot may not only focus on smart homes, but also the ambition to realize the “robot industry leader”.
Robots, the next stop for giants
To each of Amazon’s shareholder letters from 1998 to 2016, Bezos included the first one from 1997. “It’s all about the long term,” and long-termism sets the tone for the company — sowing the seeds of the future and then waiting for the rewards.
Whether it is the home environment, or logistics and warehousing, robots are a long-term goal that Amazon is optimistic about.
In 2005, Amazon was still an online store with books as its main product, and that year it launched the Prime subscription membership service, which allows members to enjoy two-day delivery for any amount of purchases in the country. Since then, the optional time for express delivery services has been further shortened, resulting in next-day delivery, one-hour delivery, etc.
Prime has played a very important role in Amazon’s rapid expansion, bringing a large number of loyal users to Amazon, helping the company to seize nearly half of the US e-commerce market. At the same time, consumers’ expectations for efficient contract performance have been raised, and a large number of delivery orders have also increased the pressure on warehousing operations.
Seven years after launching its Prime subscription service, even if it hasn’t built a large-scale fulfillment center, Amazon has made a decision: It has acquired automated logistics provider Kiva Systems to use autonomous mobile robots to speed up the process of automating warehouses. The Kiva robot picks up more than 300 kilograms of goods and shuttles through Amazon’s warehouse service center.
According to reports, Amazon used 45,000 robots in 2017 .
The addition of robots has improved the efficiency of cargo transportation, but before fully automated warehouses are realized, humans must also work safely in the space where robots are located.
With the focus on human-machine collaboration technology, Canvas Technology, an automated warehouse robot startup, has entered Amazon’s field of vision.
In 2019, Amazon completed its acquisition of the company. Canvas’ core technology enables logistics vehicles in the warehouse to be “unmanned”, avoiding staff and operating equipment.
In June, Amazon released a slew of warehouse automation systems, including Proteus from its Kiva line of shelf transport robots. Proteus incorporates technology from Canvas and is able to travel autonomously in environments where humans move.
Amazon’s fully automatic mobile warehouse robot Proteus | Source: PcMag
In addition to the transportation of goods, Amazon is also trying to give the task of sorting to robots. In 2021, Amazon warehouses will use the giant robotic arm Robin, which uses suction cups to pick up packages from conveyor belts and hand them over to mobile robots. Cardinal, a package movement system released this year with Proteus, uses computer vision and AI technology to further improve the speed and accuracy of sorting packages.
In the unloading process, Amazon is also looking to automate. In April this year, “Agility Robotics”, a start-up company developing bipedal robots, announced that it had received US$150 million in Series B financing, and the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund followed suit. Their robot, Digit, can navigate through obstacles, move packages, and stack goods, which will undoubtedly be the building blocks for fully automated warehouses.
Robots are also Amazon’s new answer to last-mile delivery . In addition to the unmanned delivery car Scout announced to the public, Prime air, the once-suspended drone delivery project, has also made new progress: In July this year, Amazon said it would cooperate with Texas A&M University to deploy drones, Prime air. air will start trial operation at the end of 2022.
Amazon believes that robots are a more efficient solution to replacing humans.
Amazon isn’t fighting alone when it comes to betting on robots.
At Tesla’s AI Day last year, employees in tights put on a “robot pantomime show” for people. In addition to being funny, Musk’s ambition and enthusiasm for robots is not a joke. Although the Tesla robot Tesla Bot has not disclosed much information at present, it has already succeeded in getting domestic institutions to prepare materials early and prepare to be popular among the domestic robot industry chain companies. At this year’s AI Day, we may be able to get more information about Tesla Bot.
Meituan, which specializes in offline services, has also begun to explore drone delivery services in recent years. Last week, Meituan teamed up with coffee brand Manner to try drones to deliver coffee to camping consumers’ tents. At the same time, the team has also had more than one year of trial operation of drone delivery in Shenzhen.
Xiaopeng, a new car-making force, exposed the “robot pony” this year; Xiaomi also released its own robot CyberOne at the press conference just now.
Meituan has been experimenting with drone delivery for a long time | Source: Geek Park
Even if the technology seems to be immature, there is no doubt that robots have become a new battlefield for giants. The goal is still far away, but everyone is “running” in their own way.
This article is reprinted from: https://www.geekpark.net/news/306420
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