Once upon a time,when it came to robot vacuum cleaners, no one ever thought about the strong rise of Chinese domesticbrands,which could directly "kick out" famous American companies.
Especially industry leader iRobot,which once held an unshakable dominant position,but now has been stripped of its "fig leaf" by Chinese companies.
Recently, International Data CorporationIDC released the "Global Smart Home Device Market Quarterly Tracking Report (Q3 2025)", which shows:
Inthe first three quarters of 2025,global smart vacuum cleaner shipments reached17.424 million units, a year-on-year increase of 18.7%. Among them, Q3single-quarter shipmentswere6.161 million units, with a year-on-year increase soaring to 22.9%.
Image source:webull
On this highly credible ranking,in terms of market share, Chinese manufacturersachieveda dominatingperformance——the top fiveglobalpositions were all taken by Chinese brands.
Narwal (Yunjing) from Shenzhen, Chinawith8.5% market sharesuccessfully enteredthe globaltop5,surpassingthe once famous AmericanmanufactureriRobot.
Image source:IDC
The rise of the dark horse of Chinese domestic brands
According to reports,Narwal (Yunjing) was founded in 2016, a Shenzhen-based home robotics company,with main products covering robot vacuum cleaners and handheld floor washers.
Image source:Google
The brand's founder Mr. Zhanggraduated fromShanghai Jiao Tong Universityin 2015, and thenjoinedXbotPark Robotics Base, studying under the "DJI Godfather" Li Zexiang.
In October 2016, Mr. Zhang officially founded the Narwal (Yunjing) brand.He spent3 years refining the product, and in 2019 launchedthe first productNARWAL J1. This integrated sweeping and mopping robot product, with itsoriginalself-cleaning mop technology, successfully ignited the consumer market and repeatedly topped category sales.
In 2023, Narwal officially started its Tuke journey, and in September of the same year, overseas business revenue grew by 350% year-on-year.
In 2024,the brand further expanded its global footprint,extending its market toEurope, America, Japan, Korea,Southeast Asia and many otherregions, driving overseas revenue to surge nearly700% year-on-year.
This year,Narwal'sannual revenuealso reached3.4 billion yuan, with overall revenue nearly doubling.
Now, the brand's products cover more than50 countries worldwide, serving over 4 million users, and has successfully become a dark horse and top seller in this niche category. (Data sources: Hexun News, Sina Finance, Tianxia Chaoshan)
Image source:Google
Deploying social media to open up the Tuke growth chain
In the past, when purchasing smart cleaning appliances, consumers preferred offline channels. After all, being able to see and touch the products helps them make quick buying decisions.
But online, sales of such products face challenges: without direct experience, consumers inevitably question the actual effectiveness and hesitate to pay for them.
The turning point came with the use of social media platforms. Compared to cold text descriptions and static images, short videos have a natural advantage in e-commerce conversion, as they can intuitively show the actual usage scenarios, allowing potential consumers to see the results for themselves and dispel purchase doubts.
Just likeTikTok, this top overseas social media platform, has fueled the rise of many brands, and Narwal is one of those who seized the opportunity.
OnTikTok, Narwal has established its own brand account @narwalrobot. So far, the account has gained 254,000 followers and 828,000 likes.
Image source:TikTok
Taking the most popular video as an example, we can get a sense of the overall content style of the account.
The first half of the video follows a typical unboxing format, while the second half shows the product in action cleaning a home, intuitively demonstrating its convenient and efficient user experience.
Users, while watching immersively, can both learn about the product features and be precisely influenced, leading to the next step of purchase conversion.
In the end, the video reached3.3 million views and 122,900 likes, successfully attracting a large number of potential users to watch, with many comments saying "I need this."
Image source:TikTok
Not only does Narwal focus on its own brand account,it has also developed its own strategy for collaborating with TikTok influencers.
To accurately reach target customers, the brand did not blindly cast a wide net, but chose to cooperate with many home cleaning and pet influencers, leveraging their traffic to promote the product.
In terms of content presentation, the main approach is to feature people and products together or pets interacting with the product, which not only strengthens the bond between the product and influencers/pets, but also makes the video content more engaging.
For home cleaning influencers,Narwal collaborated with @homewithfarah, who has 6.2 million followers.
Image source:TikTok
In the video, influencerhomewithfarahis busy cooking,while Narwal's robot vacuumis quietly working nearby. When she accidentally spills seasoning on the floor, the robot vacuumimmediately starts cleaning and removes the stain.
With no extra narration or explanation, this57-secondhome scenevideoreceived2.4 million views and 66,600 likes.
In the comments, manypotential usersasked:"Can these really clean well? I want to buy one." "How much does this kind of vacuum cleaner cost?"
Image source:TikTok
For pet influencer collaborations,Narwal partnered with @the_hayeks, who has 2.6 million followers, and thiscaseprecisely hit the pain points of pet-owning families.
Image source:TikTok
What pet-owning family hasn't faced a messy house?
In the video, influencerthe_hayeks' son and dog play together, and the feeding process makes the dog's area a mess. Seeing this, the_hayeks moves the dog away and brings in Narwal's robot vacuum to help clean up.
This video resonated with countless pet owners, with the comments full of shared feelings. In addition, seeing the cute scene of the dog standing on the robot vacuum, some users shared moments of their own cats interacting with robot vacuums, which was very interesting.
Image source:TikTok
It is clear that this kind of down-to-earth content, using real-life scenarios instead of deliberate advertising, is more likely to resonate and subtly increase users' favorability towards the product.
Conclusion
Narwal's success proves that even in the technology-intensive field of robot vacuum cleaners, Chinese brands can break through in the global market through product innovation and precise marketing.
Currently, the global smart vacuum cleaner market is in a period of rapid growth, with mature markets like North America and Europe seeing increasing demand for smart products, and emerging markets like Southeast Asia and the Middle East quickly releasing their consumption potential. This is a golden opportunity for domestic companies to enter the market.
For domestic companies, rather than engaging in homogeneous competition in the saturated domestic market, it is better to look to the broader overseas stage. There, not only are there mature consumer groups, but also market patterns waiting to be redefined.
In this era where both product strength and content strength matter, Chinese brands are fully capable of setting new industry standards in the global market through technological innovation and localized operations.