RVC 3Q26 Preview: Core profits growth to remain resilient despite trade policy/PD timing concerns; Buy Roborock

This note is Goldman Sachs' 3Q26 preview for China's robotic vacuum cleaner (RVC) and wet-dry vacuum industry. We argue investor concerns over China/EU trade tensions and restrictive trade tools proposed by France and Germany, as well as quarterly volatility from the timing shift of Amazon Prime Day and rising electronic component costs, are overdone, and that core profit growth of our covered companies should remain resilient. On industry trends, domestic demand is under pressure with online retail declining while offline stays relatively resilient; overseas demand remains healthy, with the US moderating temporarily on an earlier Prime Day before recovering, while Europe and APAC are less affected. Roborock should outperform on share gains at home and abroad, supported by channel expansion (including US offline retailers), operating efficiency improvement and new product categories, delivering solid revenue and operating profit growth with continued margin recovery;