Roborock It's not just any brand. This Chinese company has broken into traditional markets with great force thanks to the quality of its products and the innovation it offers in each generation of its robot vacuum cleaners. So much so that he has even stood up to iRobot. However, there is a lot of confusion with the Roborock brand. Is it Xiaomi who is behind it? Are you an independent company? Well, let's get rid of doubts.
Chinese brands go at their pace
There are many ways to create brands. In the traditional markets, European, American and Japanese have always had their peculiar way of creating and organizing brands. For example, Japanese culture tends for a single brand to market many different products. An example would be Yamaha, which sells products as diverse as motorcycles and pianos under the same brand. The opposite case is the American. The Yankees camouflage different brands under the same conglomerate. When an American buys a Buick, a Cadillac or a Chevrolet, he is really buying General Motors. But the brands separate to segment different audiences and monopolize the market of options that are owned by the same owner.
We more or less understand how brands from Europe, Japan and the United States work, but when we get into china in the equation, we become an important cocoa. And it is that the Chinese have a rather peculiar way of moving their brands that we do not usually see in other markets. This is the main reason why we tend to think that any device compatible with the Mi Home ecosystem It is a brand of Xiaomi.
Xiaomi and Roborock are two different companies
Roborock was founded in July 2014. It registered under the name “Beijing Roborock Technology Co.,Ltd». Xiaomi was not part of its foundation, but it was a key piece of its history. In September 2014, Roborock received a good Xiaomi investment, and went on to become a key company within the ecosystem of the Chinese giant.
The brand started working. In mid-2016, Xiaomi launched the My Home Robotic Vacuum Cleaner, a product that was manufactured entirely by Roborock. Come on, it was a case of badge engineering, a marketing technique that Xiaomi uses a lot with the companies that are part of its ecosystem. This first robot was a success, and Roborock wanted to aspire to more —the joke has come out unintentionally—, not settling for being the company that manufactures robots for Xiaomi.
In September 2017, Roborock secured financing of 10 million yuan through through crowdfunding. Thus was born the Roborock Robotic Vacuum Cleaner, the first robot to bear the Roborock insignia.
Since then, the company has been able to build machines on your own, although that does not mean that it has ceased to be a strategic partner of Xiaomi. Roborock uses the ecosystem Mi Home because there is no point in designing something of your own when one of your most important shareholders is Xiaomi, a company of which you are also an important part. But beyond that, it is incorrect to refer to any Roborock machine as a Xiaomi vacuum cleaner.