Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Intelligent Relativity, author 丨 She Kevin
The smart speaker has another accident, and the perpetrator is still Echo. A few days ago, an American user broke the news that Amazon's Alex smart voice assistant posed a dangerous challenge to her 10-year-old child through her home Echo smart speaker, which was "actually recommended that he plug the mobile phone charger into the wall socket, only insert half of it, and then touch the exposed plug with a coin." ”
This incident was called "touching the electric door" by netizens, but this is not the first time that Echo has "made a fool of himself". It is also ridiculous to say that now when the smart speaker once again enters the public vision, relying on accidents again and again, then the terminal that was once called a phenomenon is following in the footsteps of DVD and MP3?
The Hundred Regiments War has become a bustling city that cannot be returned
Do you remember having a smart speaker at home? How long have you not used it? Have you used any other features besides letting it play music? For smart speakers, if the key word in 2020 is "disappeared", then the keyword in 2021 may be "dead".
Smart speakers, this "fragrant food" a few years ago, it is no exaggeration to say that it has been "uninhabited" now. From the perspective of the industry, the number of players who have newly entered the smart speaker track this year is "zero", and many players are gradually withdrawing. The number of brands on sale has gone from 42 in 2020 to 30. Why was it that before ming, it was still "little sweet", but suddenly it became "Cow Lady"?
The reason is not new, when manufacturers continue to advocate that smart speakers are assistants, is a housekeeper, lack of user habits, lack of matching content, lack of application scenarios but constantly tell the market, smart speakers are neither toys, nor worthy of tools, but also do not do well as assistants, but also not as a housekeeper.
The highlights of what began in 2017 are gone. Following the first decline in sales that began in the third quarter of last year, to a year-on-year decline of 8.6%, this year's decline is still not intended to stop. According to Lotu Technology, as of the third quarter of 2021, China's smart speaker market sales were 7.79 million units, down 1.5% year-on-year. Even with the blessing of "Double Eleven" in November, the sales volume of China's smart speaker market still fell by 19.9% year-on-year.
Specific to the brand level, it can be described as a family of joys and sorrows. According to Strategy Analytics data, Baidu Xiaodu smart speakers in the Q3 quarter became the only brand in BMX to achieve growth, with shipments reaching 5.4 million units, an increase of 15% year-on-year; Tmall Genie shipments of 4.3 million units, down 6% year-on-year; Xiaomi Xiaoai shipments of 2 million units, down 3% year-on-year.
As for the new products, after experiencing the waist cut in 2020, this year seems to have recovered. Looking at the results first, according to the incomplete statistics of "Intelligent Relativity", as of October this year, the market has launched more than 10 new products in total. Most of them are concentrated in the second half of the year, such as Huawei launched a new genie learning smart screen and a new generation of Sound X in July, Tmall Genie launched CC6, in August Xiaomi launched a new generation of smart speakers Xiaomi Sound and XiaoAi Speaker Play Enhanced Version, Baidu released "Tim Intelligent Rotating Screen", in September Huawei launched another new Huawei AI speaker 2e, Beijing Fishzag released a new AI alarm clock smart speaker, October Tmall Genie launched V10, if you add Tmall Genie released E1 in June, Kyo Fish P6 and Haier AI speaker Play released in March.
It can be seen that more than 10 products are basically "monopolized" by the five major brands of Baidu, Ali, Xiaomi, Huawei and Beijing-Tokyo Fish. From another perspective, this also means that there is still interest in smart speaker products in the current domestic market, and only Huawei and Beijing Tokyo Fish are left to attack Baidu, Ali and Xiaomi.
In turn, looking at other brands, JBL has not released a new model in two years, Suning Xiaobiu is also two years, the last smart speaker of 360 is also stuck in 2019, And Himalaya has not launched a new product for three years, although these brands have no new products, they are still selling, and Tencent Dingdang has a screen smart speaker that has been discontinued.
"Hundred Regiments War" has become a bustling that smart speakers can't go back to.
Three lines fall together and see what users say
Under the background of the number of players on the track, the number of products and market sales, and the decline of the three lines, how long can the smart speaker last?
"From the purchase of the first smart speaker in 2018, it has been used for more than 3 years now, there are 4 smart speakers in the family, two with screens without screens, but the most recent one was also bought in 2020." Xiao Li told "Intelligent Relativity" that Xiao Li can be regarded as a full circle of science and technology products in the city, in addition to a full set of smart homes, even the decoration is full of "hard technology wind".
Asked why not buy the latest smart speaker when Xiao Li said, "Two reasons, one is that the smart speaker at home can fully meet their own use needs, before some scenes may also need to be woken up through smart speakers, but now basically use mobile phones, from the mobile phone APP set up, relatively speaking, the use of mobile phones may be more aspects, such as now the winter weather is cold, I can directly open the air conditioner through the mobile phone before I go home." Second, because the upgrade iteration of smart speakers in the past two years has not seen any revolutionary changes, the functions are similar. ”
In fact, this point has always been the embarrassment of the development of smart speaker products, and after encountering technical bottlenecks, smart speakers can only blindly seek big. Of course, the screenless smart speaker also did not play out any flowers, like Huawei's screenless speaker Sound X2021 launched this year, several changes, one is the appearance of the "48 full-color LED lights", in the moment when the lights are lit, the author thinks of the mobile phone marquee; the second is the function, plus the gesture control function, like the need to stop the music when the palm of the hand to cover the top of the speaker, you can let the speaker enter the silent mode, exit the mute then need to be blocked again. Is this really smart enough? Who stays next to a smart speaker or always carries a smart speaker at home?
Xiao Zhang is a bao mom, the son is just 4 years old, but considering that after two years to go to school, coupled with the impact of advertising, she also bought a brand learning wisdom screen for her children, "because my and his father's English accent are not standard, I wanted to buy this learning machine to let him contact English in advance, but after buying it is equivalent to a loss, first of all, although there is free content in the machine, but there are always flaws in the free, such as lack of translation, short content and even less, etc., the machine itself needs thousands, plus the opening of membership is hundreds of years Secondly, it may be that the child is still young, although some of the animation content in it can attract him, but it has not been able to make him concentrate for a long time, and the effect is not very obvious after half a year, just as it is grinding his ears. ”
For players who are still insisting on the track, the education track can be described as the most popular, for example, not long ago, the veteran education and training company New Oriental announced that it has reached a cooperation with Tmall Genie, and the two sides will carry out comprehensive cooperation in technology, content, services and other aspects around education intelligent hardware; before that, Baidu, Huawei, and Tencent have launched related intelligent education hardware.
However, it is not necessarily in the form of smart speakers, such as Tencent in March this year, launched the "AILA intelligent work light" with the built-in "Tencent Operation Jun" APP; in April, Tencent launched a smart education computer based on the Linux system.
Obviously, smart speakers are not irreplaceable in this field, which may also be a key reason for the "demise" of smart speakers. Or look at the education market, although this year's online education track has suffered an unprecedented impact, but the education hardware is emerging in an endless stream, learning lights, smart pens, learning tablets, pocket learning printers and other products are dazzling, the main field of education smart speakers put into it there is no special advantage.
In terms of players, there are Ali, ByteDance, Good Future, Youdao, New Oriental, Ape Coaching, Zebra lineup thickness is more than smart speakers. What to do? In fact, a deeper change around smart speakers has been quietly staged last year.
Change the form, but it may not be a smart speaker anymore
Although all brands have never said that smart speakers are dead, their actions have "betrayed" themselves.
On December 27, Baidu Create 2021 was officially held, at which Baidu released a number of intelligent hardware products, and did not see smart speakers, because in Baidu's view, "Xiaodu" has long been freed from the shackles of smart speakers, and is "everywhere" in the form of voice assistants. There is also a hardware layout like Baidu's continuous extension, from smart speakers to smart TVs to smart fitness mirrors.
Tmall Genie's understanding of smart speakers is also extremely similar, "out" of smart speakers, into mobile phones, home appliances and other smart hardware, no longer limited to smart speaker entities. Alibaba said that Tmall Genie is no longer just a terminal product, but a complete ecosystem created through platforms such as AliGenie. To put it bluntly, the brand side has seen that smart speakers alone can no longer support the mission originally set for it.
After much effort, "Intelligent Relativity" found a Xiao Xu who had worked for a smart speaker foundry service manufacturer, who had just left the factory in November this year, and he was not willing to talk more about related issues out of professional ethics, but Xiao Xu still answered a few of our questions.
Xiao Xu told us that "the company's business is the OEM production business, but mainly based on headphone products, the proportion of smart speakers is not high, from 2018 onwards, there have been several brands for OEM production, last year's situation is quite normal, but this year there is a brand has stopped the OEM business, another market to sell better brands, its business volume this year is significantly reduced, the specific number is not clear, there may be more than 30% or 40%. ”
In addition to further confirming that the smart speaker is coming to an end, it also shows that the brand has long realized that the decline in product sales will continue, otherwise it will not cut production in advance.
Of course, it has always been a loss-making transaction, which may be the ultimate reason for the "demise" of smart speakers, smart speakers can not make money, but they cannot always lose money. What's more, even if it is a loss of money smart speakers are not easy to sell, look at the "huge" Beijing Fish In the past two years, the publicity on the Internet can be seen everywhere, and I still think that the Beijing Fish Sign sells well, but in fact?
On Jingdong, a 399-priced Kyoyuza smart speaker showed sales of 50,000+, which looks normal at first glance, but the comments reveal an unusual share.
Buy refrigerator to send smart speakers, buy water purifiers to send smart speakers, buy toilet covers are still smart speakers, once upon a time by manufacturers chased, by the user's popular smart speaker has been "reduced" to a giveaway, even if it is a screenless basic model.
Once again, it has been verified that the era of "smart speaker explosions" has finally become a thing of the past.