After the smart speaker became popular, many consumers and manufacturers have invested considerable attention in this field. However, due to the delay in time to market, Apple's HomePod smart speakers have lost the opportunity in the market-according to Bloomberg News quoted sources as saying that Apple lowered its HomePod sales forecast and number of orders in late March.
HomePod Smart Speaker
News from suppliers and analysts shows that Apple's first smart speaker product does not seem to sell well. Employees and market analysts at Apple ’s retail stores said the reasons were HomePod ’s relatively high pricing, delays in going public after the long holiday quarter, and Siri ’s poor AI performance.
However, the downturn of Apple's HomePod smart speakers does not represent the direction of the entire global smart speaker tide. According to home networking data, in February, the penetration rate of smart speakers in American households reached 20%, an increase of more than 50% from the data three months ago. Currently, 18.7 million American households are using smart speakers.
It is reported that Samsung and Facebook will also launch smart speakers during the year. It can be seen that the giant war in the global smart speaker market may have just begun this year.
New form: Smart speakers with screens emerge
In May 2017, Amazon Echo entered the market for two and a half years, with cumulative sales reaching approximately 8 million units. With the rapid development momentum, the smart speaker with screen Echo Show was born. According to data from the research institute Intelligence at the beginning of 2018, Echo Show accounted for 7% of the Echo camp, and combined with the sales of Amazon Echo series products of at least 20 million units in 2017, Echo Show broke through in more than half a year With a million units, it can be described as a small success.
Echo Show Smart Speaker
Then in September 2017, Amazon launched a smaller Echo Spot with a screen speaker. The main bedroom scene is actually an "alarm clock" with a screen.
At this time, Google, which has Google Assistant voice assistant and YouTube's two magic weapons, could not sit still. At the CES in January, Sony, LG, Lenovo, JBL and other players were invited to jointly create smart speakers with screens. Google also showed that it has cooperated with Lenovo to launch the "Smart Display" speaker with screen, which is very similar to a "radio" with screen. It is expected to be available this summer.
If you consider CES 2018 as a time node, you will find that before this, Amazon was the only one to enter the field of smart speakers with screens, and then with the entry of Google and various audio manufacturers and hardware manufacturers, smart speakers with screens are rapidly coming. .
"Xiaodu at home" smart speaker
Looking at this trend in China, it seems to be happening. In March, Ali launched the existing Tmall Genie X1 + Genie Fire Eye system curve entry “with screen†smart speaker. At the end of March, Baidu and Xiaoyu launched the "Xiaodu at home" smart speaker with screen at home. CEO Li Yanhong personally stood on the platform.
New situation: Smart speaker market with screen led by giants
Through observation, we can find that there are mainly four types of players participating in the battle with screen smart speakers, namely Internet giants, audio manufacturers, home appliance manufacturers, and startup companies. Different companies have different purposes for entering the game. Behind them all point to the few giant voice platforms of Google, Amazon, and BAT in China. In the end, this war will be a battle between the voice platforms of various Internet giants.
The first category of representatives are Amazon, Google, BAT and other Internet giants. For them, they are competing for voice interaction platforms, landing AI technology, and preempting scene entrances are the core. This can be seen in the “personal combat†staged by Google and Amazon around CES 2018 at the voice portal. Compared with Amazon's success in making two smart speakers with screens, Google has joined forces with players such as Lenovo, LG, JBL, and Sony to fight Amazon's dominance.
Participants in the second category are mainly electronics and home appliance manufacturers such as Lenovo and Haier, and they mainly go to the home entrance. At this year's AWE, Haier showed two smart speakers, one mini speaker and one AR speaker. This AR speaker can present a projection on the desktop, voice and touch interaction, Haier employees said the product will be available in the second half of this year. Haier has many types of smart home appliances. In recent years, it has also pushed for smart homes. It can be seen that it needs such a control entrance to carry more services with other home appliances.
The third category is audio manufacturers represented by Sony, JBL, LG, etc. They catch up with the trend and use screen speakers to upgrade themselves. Li Yong, chairman of DOSS, once said that the audio industry is a very fast-changing industry, so only by following the trend and constantly embracing change can we develop. Therefore, Sony, JBL, LG and other major audio brands are actively adding voice interaction, screens, etc. to speaker products to give users more service value. But because audio manufacturers rely on the voice interaction platforms of Internet giants, they are more like the supporting roles of giants.
The fourth type of players, represented by startups such as Digital Home and Xiaoyujiayu, seek to find room for development in new growth points, so as to take a slice of the market. If Xiaoyu was established at home in 2014, it will be a home companion robot. However, because the smart speaker with screen involves huge voice interaction technology and content service resources on the back end, it is difficult for these back-end contents and technologies to be completed by startup companies. The power of startup companies is difficult to survive. "After the technology and content of the giants are polished, the startups still have a chance to create products for vertical scenarios," a product manager in the smart speaker circle told me.
It can be seen that in the case of smart speakers with screens, Internet giants or voice interaction platforms are still the core, and the content and services of their backends often determine the value of hardware products. And home appliance manufacturers, audio manufacturers and startup companies are looking for new opportunities to seek greater development.
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