China’s online exoskeleton market sold 24 per cent fewer units last quarter and made slightly more money doing it. That is not a contradiction. It is the clearest read yet on who these devices are actually for.
The quarter in numbers
Third quarter online retail revenue reached RMB 93.13 million, up 1.5 per cent on the previous quarter, on 9,402 units, down 24.4 per cent. Average selling price rose 34.2 per cent to RMB 9,905. The volume effect subtracted RMB 22.36 million and the price effect added RMB 23.74 million, leaving a net gain of RMB 1.37 million.
The monthly path was a V. July fell 36.5 per cent to RMB 23.18 million after June promotions pulled demand forward. August recovered 42.1 per cent to RMB 32.94 million. September reached RMB 37.01 million, up 12.4 per cent and the best month of the year, with an average price of RMB 10,076, the first time the monthly figure crossed RMB 10,000.
One brand, two thirds of the money
Taixi Zhixing took 66.7 per cent of the category, up 16.6 percentage points on the previous quarter, with revenue up 35 per cent. Its monthly share climbed from 65.0 per cent in July to 67.7 per cent in September. The Yinyue X1, launched in Hangzhou on 15 June, carries waist assistance and walking support for elderly users, app control and a four figure price tag, and delivered more than 70 per cent of the brand’s quarterly revenue in its first full selling season.
Channel mix moved as violently. Platform e-commerce went from 21.1 per cent of revenue to 50.9 per cent, a gain of 29.8 points, with sales on those platforms up 144.4 per cent on the quarter.
What a rising price with falling volume means
An exoskeleton at RMB 2,000 is a gadget. At RMB 10,000 it is a piece of medical-adjacent equipment that a family buys for a parent, and that buyer reads reviews, compares torque figures and expects a service network. The category is being dragged from fitness accessory to durable goods by a single product cycle.
The risk sits in the same place as the opportunity. One brand holding two thirds of an online market that sells fewer than 10,000 units a quarter is not yet a market with a second place. It is a market with a leader and a long tail of sellers fighting over the remaining third at prices that cannot fund the service an elderly user needs.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://robot.ofweek.com/.