Recently, Dreame Tech, the unicorn in the smart cleaning appliance industry, has made new moves.

Before the opening of AWE 2025, Dreame Tech announced on March 13 that it would officially enter the race for major household appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines, as well as the field of smart kitchen appliances, accelerating its layout of a smart home ecosystem. A few related products have already been unveiled at the AWE 2025 venue. Earlier this year, Dreame delivered an impressive performance report. According to AVC Cloud data, in the fierce competition in China's cleaning appliance market in 2024, Dreame Tech became the market leader in the overall cleaning category. However, more attention has been paid to its frequently active "side businesses" than its main business. After Dreame Tech CEO Yu Hao announced on an internal social platform in January that the company would build airplanes, media reports later revealed that Dreame was recruiting staff to prepare for its fintech business. At the same time, the humanoid robot business, which was announced to be restarted some time ago, is also in full swing. The dark horse in the cleaning appliance industry has transformed into a "crossover fanatic." When this technology-driven enterprise, proud of its "world's fastest motor speed," extends its reach into the fields of automobile manufacturing, finance, and even aviation, the outside world sees not only ambition but also a "dream-making odyssey" related to survival.

#01 The Crisis of the "Defender"

With the support of the "National Subsidy" policy over the past year, the cleaning appliance market has grown along with the overall home appliance market. According to AVC Cloud monitoring, the sales volume of China's cleaning appliance industry in 2024 was 42.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%, with retail sales of 30.35 million units, a year-on-year increase of 22.8%. Among them, the scale of robot vacuum cleaners reached 19.36 billion yuan, with sales increasing by 41.1% year-on-year, erasing the growth gloom of the previous two years. However, due to price wars and the decline of category cycle dividend advantages, the growth rate of floor washing robots began to slow down, with a scale of 14.09 billion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 15.4%. The average price declined by 12% year-on-year. The high-end market is Dreame's main arena. Data shows that Dreame's robot vacuum cleaners ranked first in sales above 5,000 yuan in cumulative online monitoring channels from 2023 to 2024, earning AVC Cloud's certification as "the industry leader in sales of high-end robot vacuum cleaners in China." In the market share of floor washing robot brands in the 3,000 yuan+ price segment of China's online market in 2024 announced by the data monitoring platform, Dreame ranked first in the market with a retail volume share of 44.7% and a retail sales share of 41.7%. However, the vacancy of Dreame in the affordable mainstream market is still obvious. The latest report released by IDC shows that among the top five sales market shares totaling 60.9% globally last year, four were occupied by Chinese companies. Dreame ranked fifth with an 8.0% market share, followed by Rockrobo (16.0%), Irobot (13.7%), Ecovacs (13.5%), and Xiaomi (9.7%). Although Dreame's shipment growth rate reached 36.6%, its market share was still only half that of Rockrobo. If we look back two years, Dreame's absolute dominance in the high-end market was enviable. However, with fluctuations in the global economic environment, the crisis for this defender of the high-end market may come from the mainstream market. On the one hand, there is market share compression in the mainstream market. According to the IDC report, the global smart robot vacuum cleaner market shipped 20.603 million units throughout 2024, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%, with annual sales reaching 9.31 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 19.7%. The average unit price increased by 7.6% to 452 USD (about 3,200 yuan). It is not difficult to see that although there is a trend towards high-end upgrades, there is still a significant gap from the average price of 5,000 yuan. On the other hand, the user market is increasingly concerned about cost-effectiveness. For two robot vacuum cleaners priced at 3,200 yuan and 5,000 yuan, respectively, users obviously have higher expectations for the product experience and quality of the latter, and the corresponding feedback on issues will also be louder. Data from the Heimao Complaint Platform shows that as of March 22, the number of complaints against Dreame Tech was 2,379, with 150 complaints in the past 30 days. In comparison, Rockrobo had 1,222 complaints, with 32 in the past 30 days. This means that Dreame's performance in the mainstream market will become increasingly important going forward.

#02 The Lost Path of the "Crossover"

At present, it seems that Dreame may not be able to devote more energy to focusing on its main business as it is entering a new game called "crossover." From the recently high-profile entry into the smart major appliances and humanoid robot sectors to the eagerly anticipated fintech and smart automobile manufacturing, and even the "completely unrelated" catering and "illusory" aviation fields, Dreame wants to crossover into too many arenas. Overall, except for building airplanes, each of these is a popular track in recent years, and each is also a fiercely competitive red ocean. For Dreame, which has established its reputation with technological strength, it is understandable to explore a second growth line as the ceiling of the smart cleaning track approaches and its own development necessitates it. However, its strategy over the past two years appears to be overly chaotic and radical. First, in the two major tracks of smart major appliances and robots, Dreame's indecisiveness caused it to miss the first entry opportunity. The supply chain for major appliances is relatively mature, and Dreame has accumulated rich experience in smart cleaning technology, making it highly likely to form differentiated competitiveness in the major appliance market. For example, Rockrobo, which also possesses this attribute, crossed over into the washing machine track as early as 2023, and Xiaomi, with the halo of ecosystem synergy, emerged early in fields such as televisions and air conditioners. However, Dreame entered at least a year later. Dreame's humanoid robot route has been quite tumultuous. It was the first to develop the bionic quadruped robot dog Eame One as early as 2021. Two years later, Dreame's humanoid robot staged the world's first famous scene of completing a coffee latte art, which once attracted intense attention. However, at the beginning of 2024, the introduction of the robot section on its official website was deleted. Just when the outside world was speculating that it would "break up" with this business, Dreame established the ZhuiChuang Robot Industry Venture Capital Fund with a total target scale of 11 billion yuan in August last year and, after the new year, established the Dreame Innovation Smart Robot Co., Ltd., which it wholly owns. This attitude of suddenly tightening and loosening reflects issues in the strategic direction decision-making of Dreame's senior management. Looking at fintech and smart automobile manufacturing, the news all comes from media reports, and Dreame has never responded directly to related business information. It is understood that Dreame assembled a team of about 200 people last year for automobile manufacturing, and a fintech team focusing on global consumer finance business is also being prepared. Currently, some job postings for related positions are no longer displayed, but there are still positions related to autonomous driving and cross-border financial products, indicating that these are not unfounded rumors. However, for Dreame, although there is "technological synergy" at the cross-business level for both, the actual reuse rate is questionable. For example, the technological accumulation of cleaning motors is not sufficiently related to the power systems of new energy vehicles, and core technologies such as batteries and electronic controls need to be broken through from scratch. Fintech also has no direct technological or channel synergy with its main business, and the two businesses can easily become capital-consuming experiments. From the perspective of market environment challenges, the new energy vehicle market has entered the elimination stage. Under the pressure of new and old giants such as Xiaomi and BYD, there is little room for survival for new players. Financial regulatory policies in consumer finance markets around the world are becoming stricter. While the high returns in credit markets in sub-developed overseas regions also mean high risks, in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and other regions, leading internet finance players such as Xinye and Lexin have already taken root, making it equally a tough nut to crack.

#03 The Trade-offs of the "Dream Maker"

In January this year, Dreame CEO Yu Hao shared a screenshot of the internal Feishu "Dreame Aviation" group chat, claiming to build the best business class airplanes on Earth. The screenshot content shows that the group chat already has 188 members, and the word "high-end" has been mentioned more than once. It sounds somewhat far-fetched for a technology company that makes small cleaning appliances to say it will build airplanes. But if you look at the resume of this post-80s entrepreneur, you will find that compared to Musk, who was suddenly fired by two startup technology companies and then suddenly announced that he would build rockets, the former's idea is not that outlandish. Born in 1987, Yu Hao graduated from Tsinghua University's School of Aerospace Engineering and originally came from the aerospace field. He was always a prodigy during his student years, having been admitted to Tsinghua University through the guaranteed admission system starting from the high school entrance examination. He developed the world's first trirotor drone, participated in the development of China's earliest quadrotor drone, and was also the founder of Tsinghua University's "Sky Workshop." Relying on its high-speed digital motor exceeding 100,000 rpm, Dreame surpassed Dyson and became an industry dark horse. On the walls of its offices and factories, there are corporate culture slogans that say, "Either don't do it, or be the best in the world," which echoes the young leader's paranoia and radicalism in business understanding. To some extent, Yu Hao is enthusiastic about "dream-making." He once said in an interview, "Dreame doesn't bet on the small probability of a 1% track. It only uses the N+1 approach to capture 99% of the world economy. Many people avoid large businesses due to concerns about risk investment, resulting in most people crowding into small business tracks that only account for 1% of the global economy, while there are still 99% of opportunities left. Among these 99% of opportunities, the talent density and investment of excellent funds are far lower than those in the 1% crowded track." However, there is a most straightforward logic for success in the business world, which is to find the right direction while ensuring sufficient resources. Even the crazy Musk relied on Tesla's automobile manufacturing to complete capital accumulation before pursuing his dream of sending rockets into space. Judging from Dreame's trial and error in the second curve over the past two years, this aggressive approach of diversified crossovers is likely to cause resource dispersion and strategic defocus. The frequent changes in Dreame's senior management team also indirectly confirm this point: In 2024, "two generals" of Dreame Tech, Yu Chao and Guo Renjie, left the company successively. The former led Dreame Tech to complete the research and development of quadruped robots and humanoid robots in the highly valued field of generalized robots. The latter bet on Douyin during the transition to independent brands at Dreame Tech, achieving rapid growth in market share for cleaning appliances. It is worth noting that most of the senior executives who left Dreame have embarked on the path of independent entrepreneurship. For example, after leaving, Yu Chao founded Luming Robotics, which successfully secured angel round funding shortly after its establishment. Guo Renjie, who left at the end of last year, entered the consumer robot track and is close to completing the first round of funding. The approach of diversified advancement is also a considerable test for Dreame's capital chain. According to Qichacha, since its establishment, Dreame Tech has completed a total of five rounds of funding, with disclosed funding amounting to about 3.7 billion yuan. The largest round of funding was the Series C funding in October 2021, with a funding amount of 3.6 billion yuan, which is also the highest round of funding in the cleaning appliance industry. It was led by Huaxing New Economy Fund and CPE Source Peak, with follow-on investments from Country Garden Ventures, Harvest Investment, and existing shareholders Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital, and IDG Capital. The most recent Series C+ funding was in 2023. Not to mention automobile and airplane manufacturing, the research and development expenses of Dreame, which has always maintained "high R&D investment," in the main battlefield of cleaning appliances are a significant expenditure. Looking at its own cash flow generation ability, although Dreame has never publicly disclosed specific profit data, the gross profit margin of the cleaning appliance industry is not low. Referring to the net profit of 1.981 billion yuan of leading player Rockrobo in 2024, Dreame, which has an advantage in the high-end market, even if it is not fully profitable, should not have excessive loss loopholes in its main business. However, these are obviously not enough to support Dreame's cross-border dream-making in the long run. At present, Dreame has not revealed any thoughts on IPO. In a market environment with increasingly tight capital, Dreame may need to find a balance between "dream-making" and pragmatism.