By WU Yangyu
Dreame Technology is very much still an also-ran in China's robot vacuum stakes, despite taking 20 percent of the market, it trails Ecovacs with 36 percent and Roborock with 26 percent.
As a latecomer to the race, Dreame is spending heavily on R&D. In 2022, Roborock spent around 500 million (US$68 million) yuan on R&D, and Ecovacs 750 million yuan, Dreame, a relative unknown, spent around 700 million yuan.
The investment has yielded results, including the Dreame X30 with a "biomorphic robotic arm" to clean hard-to-reach corners.
Dreame has positioned itself in the high-end of the market because robot vacuums are not yet considered household essentials in China. Dreame has a presence in 360 offline stores.
Dreame's revenue for 2022 was close to 6 billion yuan and is projected to reach 9 billion this year.
