Increasing revenue without increasing profit: Stone Technology is "not worry-free"

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Source: Beijing Business Today

The global intelligent robot vacuum cleaner market continues to expand, and leading enterprise Roborock delivered a mixed scorecard for 2025. According to its 2025 performance flash report, the company achieved total operating revenue of 16.616 billion yuan for the full year, a significant year-on-year growth of 55.85%, while maintaining its position as the global leader in robot vacuum shipments with 3.788 million units shipped; however, net profit attributable to parent company shareholders reached 1.36 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 31.19%, with non-GAAP net profit falling 32.9%, showing periodic fluctuations in profitability.

According to the latest IDC data, global robot vacuum shipments reached 24.124 million units in 2025, growing 17.1% year-on-year, with the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe markets becoming the core growth engine of the industry with ultra-high growth rates of 95.6% and 40.3% respectively, as the industry maintains steady expansion overall. However, underlying this scale expansion, Aoviguanwang monitoring data shows that from January to February 2026, Roborock’s robot vacuum negative review rate rose from 3.77% to 4.1%, with some users reporting new units experiencing malfunctions and poor after-sales communication. The convenient home appliance branded as “liberating your hands” encountered numerous “inconvenient” issues in actual use. On one side is rapid growth in scale and market share, while on the other side are product quality control and service optimization challenges. The rapidly expanding industry leader urgently needs to find balance between scale growth and user experience.

High Growth and High Investment

IDC analysis indicates that the current global robot vacuum industry’s growth momentum continues to release, emerging markets are rapidly rising, and intensifying industry competition also drives enterprises to accelerate strategic transformation: either deepening full-scenario home robotics vertically or expanding horizontally into diverse consumer electronics fields. Strategic direction choices have become key differentiators for enterprise development in the next phase. The inverse relationship between revenue and profit reflects Roborock’s periodic pressures during its global expansion and product line extension phase.

A person close to Roborock told Beijing Business Today reporters that 2025’s high revenue growth was primarily driven by domestic consumption promotion policies, precise product matrix coverage across price segments meeting user needs, continuous technological innovation empowering product capabilities, and in-depth localization of overseas market channel operations and brand positioning.

Regarding the periodic decline in net profit, the person acknowledged this represents strategic pre-positioned investments by the enterprise for long-term development: on one hand, increased investment in domestic and overseas channel expansion and brand marketing has impacted short-term profits; on the other hand, increased R&D efforts in core areas like AI algorithms and cleaning technology, combined with market cultivation investments in new categories like wet-dry vacuums, further drag on current profitability; additionally, increasing the proportion of mid-to-low-end products to expand user coverage and proactively adjusting average product prices have placed periodic pressure on overall gross margin. From the company’s perspective, short-term profit investments are meant to build a more solid long-term development framework.

Looking forward, the aforementioned person revealed that Roborock will optimize operations from four directions: amplifying high-value-added product advantages to restore profitability margins, transitioning overseas markets from scale expansion toward balanced scale and profitability, focusing core technology R&D to drive efficient result conversion, while expanding new categories like wet-dry vacuums and lawn mowers to build diversified profit curves.

From an industry perspective, Jiashi Consulting reports indicate that the robot vacuum industry has entered a marketing competition phase, with leading enterprises having high sales expense ratios relative to revenue. Price wars and elevated traffic costs leave the industry broadly facing a structural challenge of “revenue growth without profit growth.”

New Units Frequently Require Major Repairs

While rapidly expanding scale, some users’ product usage and after-sales experience still have obvious room for improvement.

Consumer Xu Rui (pseudonym) purchased a Roborock P20 Ultra Plus robot vacuum in October 2025. Because the house was in its off-gassing renovation phase, the machine’s usage frequency was not high and daily maintenance was standard, yet after less than 5 months of use, it successively experienced multiple faults including mop odor, base station recognition abnormalities, voice recognition failure, app connection failure, and abnormal signal light blinking.

After Xu Rui followed customer service guidance to clean, restart, and reconnect the device, all issues remained unresolved. Official after-sales arranged for authorized repair personnel to conduct on-site inspection, which determined it was an internal critical fault requiring factory repair and removal of the machine’s water supply and drain lines. Based on the relevant provisions of the People’s Republic of China Consumer Protection Law regarding durable product quality issues within 6 months being the seller’s responsibility to prove, Xu Rui clearly requested replacement or refund, but was refused by the merchant, who only offered warranty repair and proposed cleaning solution as compensation.

With clear notification to the merchant that the return purpose was for refund—not repair—Xu Rui returned the machine as requested and preserved all communication records. Around February 16, 2026 (Chinese New Year’s Eve), without any prior notice, she received notification that the unit had been returned with the factory having independently replaced the motherboard, wire harness module, voice control board, lifting laser vision module, swivel wheel gear box assembly and other core components, with the repair slip clearly marked as performance fault. Xu Rui immediately refused acceptance, the machine has remained at the factory since, and the refund has not been processed.

Subsequently Xu Rui pursued claims through multiple channels including the e-commerce platform where the machine was purchased, Zhejiang 12315, and quality inspection departments: the platform initially opened a return entry which the merchant refused, when reviewing quality inspection reports it adopted the model sample test report rather than the specific unit’s test results, ultimately ruling the merchant not responsible and closing the return entry; the market supervision department’s mediation was also rejected by the merchant. As of mid-March 2026, while the merchant acknowledged the motherboard issue as a product quality problem, it refused Xu Rui’s return request citing expiration of the three-guarantee exchange and return period.

After-Sales Standards and Claims Require Balance

Xu Rui’s experience is not isolated. Multiple users encountered poor after-sales communication and difficulty obtaining replacement requests. Foshan consumer Chen Xi (pseudonym) purchased a Roborock robot vacuum in 2025 which frequently experienced disconnection issues after just a few uses. Following factory repair, the machine body showed obvious wear, customer service dodged responsibility citing “transportation damage,” and 12315 mediation still failed to reach agreement, with the brand not following up subsequently.

On social platforms and complaint channels, feedback regarding robot vacuum after-sales is similarly concentrated: some users report multiple returns for repair of Roborock models, faults appearing shortly after warranty expiration but being charged for disassembly, installation, labor, and parts costs, drawing complaints about “excessive repair costs”; other brand users encountered new units with defects out-of-box, after-sales providing only repair citing time limits, promised free replacement becoming paid service.

Beijing Business Today reporters learned that Roborock’s official warranty policy is: within two years from the day after product receipt, performance faults verified as quality issues through inspection enjoy free in-warranty repair; man-made damage and liquid ingress are excluded from warranty coverage; included consumables have no warranty period. Its internal “Product Performance Fault Table” clearly defines fault ranges for robot units, base stations, and power cables. The enterprise primarily uses this table and warranty policy as basis, preferring repair methods for after-sales issue handling.

Aimedis Consulting CEO Zhang Yi stated that robot vacuum core components have high customization and cost, and with the industry lacking unified replacement standards, enterprises, considering cost control, prefer repair over replacement, which has also become an industry-wide characteristic during expansion phases. How to find balance between enterprise cost control and user legal rights, and optimize dispute resolution mechanisms, has become key to brands enhancing user experience.

Regarding user feedback on product faults and after-sales communication issues, a person close to Roborock told Beijing Business Today that the company is actively collecting, responding to, and resolving user feedback, with real market feedback always serving as the core basis for team product and service optimization.

Specifically regarding quality control, the company will upgrade its full-chain quality control system, establishing rapid response channels connecting user, R&D, and production ends, leveraging user feedback to drive product technology optimization and version iteration; on the service side, having upgraded dispute resolution mechanisms and dedicated after-sales protection services, strengthened professional training for customer service teams, fully safeguarding user legal rights during warranty periods.

Common Growth Challenges

As durable consumer goods, robot vacuums have clear legal standards and industry requirements for both product quality and after-sales service.

Beijing Zehengg Law Firm lawyer Hu Lei, in an interview with Beijing Business Today, pointed out that consumer reasonable replacement requests have clear legal basis. According to Article 24 of the People’s Republic of China Consumer Protection Law, where goods provided by operators fail to meet quality requirements, consumers have the right to request return, replacement, or repair. As a durable home appliance, if a robot vacuum requires major repair shortly after use and cannot function normally, it constitutes failure of contract purpose, and consumer demands for replacement or refund have legal basis. He emphasized that the brand’s internal “Product Performance Fault Table” is a unilateral clause that cannot fall below legal protection standards, much less deprive consumers of statutory replacement rights.

Guizhou Shijun Law Firm lawyer Yang Pingzhen stated that according to the Regulations on Repair, Replacement and Return Responsibility for Certain Products, products with performance faults within 7 days of sale can be returned, exchanged, or repaired; within 15 days can be exchanged or repaired; if repairs twice during the three-guarantee period still fail to restore normal function, consumers can request replacement or return based on repair records. Brand efforts to shirk or delay constitute violations; major repairs for new products can assert lack of basic usability, legally requesting replacement or return.

Jiashi Consulting notes that from industry development patterns, intelligent cleaning appliances with “all-in-one base stations” and other integrated functions and technologies see increasing product structural complexity and correspondingly rising fault rates, making quality control and after-sales optimization common industry challenges.

Renowned crisis PR expert Zhan Junhao, partner at Fuzhou Gongsun Strategy PR, told Beijing Business Today that enterprises can shift from remedial repair toward preventive quality management, perfect after-sales response mechanisms, and convert user service into core components of brand reputation building.

For Roborock, the global leader’s market position is solidified based on scale growth, while short-term profit fluctuations and user experience optimization are growth challenges the enterprise must directly face during expansion—as the robot vacuum industry transitions from incremental markets toward stock competition, balancing global layout, technological innovation and user service, reconciling scale growth with profit quality, has become key to solving growth challenges.

With progressive optimization of quality control and after-sales systems, this industry leader may well navigate long-term stable development amid synchronized growth in scale and reputation.

Beijing Business Today reporters Tao Feng, Wang Tianyi