On the evening of March 28, Stone Technology (688169.SH) disclosed its 2023 financial report. Last year, the company achieved revenue of 8.654 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.55%, and net profit to mother of 2,051 billion yuan, an increase of 73.32% over the previous year. Recently, listed companies in the clean appliance sector have successively disclosed financial reports, and the industry is generally declining. Stone Technology's performance bucked the trend and achieved a sharp increase, and received great attention from the outside world.

Continued increase in R&D investment and simultaneous operation in domestic and foreign markets are two powerful engines of the rapid growth of Stone Technology. According to the financial report of Shitou Technology, during the reporting period, R&D investment was 619 million yuan, an increase of 26.69% over the previous year; at the end of the reporting period, 622 R&D personnel were added, and 522 new domestic and foreign authorized patents were obtained. The company will continue to iterate on key technologies to build core product competitiveness.

In the domestic market, the company consolidates its high-end brand image and lays out multi-price products to cover all price ranges; on the brand side, the company makes full use of the series of products on sale to form brand characteristic expressions, strengthen user mentality, and continue to expand market influence through new products. On the other hand, the company continues to increase the promotion and promotion of its own brands, increasing brand awareness through traditional e-commerce cooperation and new channel layout.

In terms of overseas markets, the company uses potential market size and high-quality products to focus on developing the US, Europe and Asia Pacific markets. The company has gradually established a global distribution network. Up to now, the company's products cover more than 170 countries and regions around the world, and more than 15 million households have used stone sweeping robots. At the same time, the company has set up local branches and overseas companies in major overseas markets to enhance its market position and provide better after-sales service. Currently, the company has set up overseas companies in the US, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, South Korea, etc., and opened online brand stores on online platforms such as Amazon, Home Depot, Target, Bestbuy, and WalMart in the US. The company first entered the US offline physical retail chain Target in 2023, and has won wide consumer recognition through continuous brand investment.

Stone Technology expands product sales and market coverage through diversified marketing channels. During the reporting period, Shitou continued to carry out in-depth cooperation with various e-commerce platforms to lay out products and fully tap the platform's traffic. At the same time, the company also improved marketing efficiency and market response speed through marketing strategies, market research, etc., and further stabilized the company's position in the industry.

Furthermore, the company focuses on emerging business formats and channels to further enrich offline sales channels. Domestically, through distribution, the company has set up offline experience stores in some core city business districts to accurately focus on user needs, enhance user perception and experience, and help increase industry penetration. Overseas, the company first entered the US offline physical retail chain in 2023, and has now expanded to more than 180 offline Target stores in the US.

Quan Gang, president of Stone Technology, said that after years of layout, the company has built mature and stable channels in major overseas markets, and also has great brand appeal. As Stone Technology became the most famous brand of robot vacuum cleaners in the world, Stone Technology continues to lead the development of the industry. Stone Technology will further dig deeper into the needs of global users, launch products with the ultimate user experience through continuous breakthroughs in technology, and enhance the confidence of potential users in sweeping robots. Thoroughly implement the categorical value of sweeping robots, so that sweeping robots can go from optional consumer goods to essential consumer goods.

In the next step, Stone Technology will accelerate product technology pre-research, product incubation, and achievement transformation processes to continuously enhance the company's comprehensive R&D strength and R&D efficiency. In terms of marketing, the company will further optimize and adjust the marketing business management model, sort out the marketing structure and process, enrich the marketing backbone team, strengthen organizational planning and performance assessment, and implement the annual business plan. At the same time, the company will investigate consumer demand trends in real time, continue to expand diversified sales channels, improve and optimize the marketing network system, build a domestic and overseas multi-channel sales system, develop online and offline collaboratively, deeply cover the consumer group, promote the company's brand building, and add new impetus to sales growth.