Roborock Surpasses Majority Market Share in Korea... Chinese Rivals Engage in Cutthroat Price War

Roborock extends its lead despite security concerns
Chinese rivals that rushed into the market struggle
Inventory clearance and lower launch prices fuel price war

Chinese robot vacuum specialist Roborock has solidified its dominance in the Korean market by surpassing a 50% annual market share for the first time since entering Korea. The industry is paying close attention because this performance was achieved in the home market of domestic appliance giants such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

According to Roborock on the 25th, the company’s market share in the Korean robot vacuum market last year exceeded 50%. It achieved this “majority share” result in about six years since it began its full-fledged entry into the Korean market in 2019.

On the 7th of last month (local time), the second day of CES, a robot vacuum cleaner climbs stairs at the Roborock booth at the Venetian Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Photo by Yonhap News

The company previously announced that, after holding a new product launch show in Korea in February last year, it ranked first in the domestic market with a market share in the mid-40% range. Roborock is expected to highlight this again at the launch show it will hold in Korea on the 26th, one year after the previous event.

Roborock appears to have maintained its growth despite personal data security concerns that arose in Korea last year. In particular, the possibility of personal data transfers implied in its product terms and conditions became controversial and even led to a summons to the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee for a comprehensive audit of state affairs. Nevertheless, the company has worked to dispel consumer concerns, for example by opening a “Trust Center” on its official website this year and updating its security policies.

Amid this, the sluggish performance of Chinese competitors such as Ecovacs and Dreame, which rushed into the Korean market, also appears to have had an impact. In September last year, the Korea Consumer Agency examined six robot vacuum models distributed in the market and found potential privacy violations and personal data leakage risks in products from Narwal, Ecovacs, and Dreame. Mobvoi, a Chinese company spun off from Dreame, also entered the Korean market last year but has not significantly increased its market share.

On top of that, domestic companies’ new product launches were delayed compared with initial plans. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, which had planned to release new models at the end of last year, postponed their launch dates to early this year. Samsung Electronics released its 2026 “Bespoke AI Steam” model on the 11th, and LG Electronics also plans to launch a successor model to “RoboKing AI All-in-One” within this year.

Ecovacs' Deebot X8 Pro Omni online commerce sale price. Coupang screenshot.

With Roborock running ahead, competitors have been aggressively cutting unit prices to clear inventory. On this day, on online commerce platforms such as Coupang and 11st, premium robot vacuum products that were launched last year in the 1.8–1.9 million won range were being sold at discounts of up to about 44%. Mobvoi’s “V50 Ultra,” released in Korea in July last year, has been reduced from its launch price of 1.79 million won to a current selling price of 1.09 million won. Ecovacs’ “Deebot X8 Pro Omni,” launched in the same month, is also currently being sold at a 44% discount (from 1.79 million won to 990,000 won). Dreame’s “Aqua 10 Ultra,” released in September, has likewise been discounted from 1.99 million won to 1.29 million won, a reduction of around 35%. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are also selling previous-generation models at discounts of about 28–29%.

Manufacturers are also uniformly lowering launch prices for new products this year. Roborock set the launch price of its “Qrevo Curve 2 Flow,” released this year, at 1.49 million won, which is 100,000 won lower than the 1.59 million won launch price of last year’s “Qrevo Curve 1.” Ecovacs also launched its “X11 Pro Omni” aqua-roller all-in-one robot vacuum this month at 1.69 million won, 100,000 won lower than its predecessor. The “Deebot T90 Pro Omni” was likewise priced at 1.19 million won at launch. Mobvoi, which had introduced a premium line in the 1.8 million won range last year, released its new “S70 Ultra Roller” model at 990,000 won.

The premium-focused robot vacuum market appears to be on a trend of gradually declining price levels under the low-price offensive of Chinese manufacturers. An industry insider said, “Robot vacuum products are no longer selling well at the high prices they used to command, and unsold volumes that were launched at high prices are piling up as inventory,” adding, “As some brands competitively lower their prices, the overall market price level is moving downward.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.