Smart home: competition between traditional manufacturers and new forces

Lei Jun shared a short video about Xiaomi's full set of smart home on TikTok, which received 926,000 likes and 87,000 comments in a short period of time. Obviously, the public's attention to smart home is much higher than that of the smart home era that was previously considered a false proposition.

 
At present, in the field of smart home, all giants are eager to occupy a corner. However, while the giants are fighting in the field of smart home, the enthusiasm of consumers is far from enough.

Is the golden age of smart home here?

"Smart home has a promising future." This sentence has been shouted for many years, but in the past, smart home has always been in a state of being well-received but not popular. The reason is that technology and network problems cannot meet the further development of smart home.
 
With the continuous development of technology, smart home has gradually moved from the stage of false proposition to the stage of product implementation. Now the maturity of 5G technology has aroused a surge in the vast sea of ​​smart home.
 
On the one hand, smart home appliances and home security data require fast and stable network transmission as a basis, and the commercial investment of 5G technology means that this link will be further improved.
 
On the other hand, with the development of 5G technology, 5G technology will move towards a more mature direction, and other corresponding technologies will also be assisted, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other technologies will also move forward. The positive changes in hardware facilities and related technologies in smart homes are undoubtedly a major boost to the construction of smart home ecology.
 
Under the influence of the black swan event of the epidemic, some smart device scenarios have been accelerated. Events such as contactless smart elevators and smart robots fighting the epidemic are common in news reports. Moreover, due to the epidemic, the public who stay at home for a long time have higher requirements for the quality of home life, and the demand for smart home has risen accordingly.
 
According to the "China Smart Home Equipment Industry Market Outlook and Investment Strategy Planning Report" released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, smart home has unlimited potential. According to data, the global smart home market size reached US$25.7 billion in 2017, with a compound growth rate of 26.9% from 2018 to 2023, and is expected to reach US$105.6 billion in 2023.
 
IDC data also proves the promising trend of smart home in the future. Data shows that smart home is likely to become the highest spending area of ​​the Internet of Things in 2023. With the change of technology, the smart home ecosystem will be more perfect. It is predicted that the global shipment of smart home devices will reach 1.39 billion units in 2023, and the Chinese smart home market will be 500 million units, accounting for 35.9%.
 
As a result, the gold rush of smart home has been attracting countless players to enter the market. Players of all backgrounds want to have a share in smart home.

A life-saving pill for traditional home appliance manufacturers

It has become the norm for traditional home appliance manufacturers to frequently change their names. Hisense Electric changed from "Hisense Electric" to "Hisense Vision", "Qingdao Haier" changed to "Haier Smart Home", "Skyworth Digital" changed to "Skyworth Group", etc., all of which show the determination of these traditional home appliance giants to change.
 
The reason why these traditional home appliance giants are eager to change is that the domestic home appliance market is not optimistic.
 
According to the data of the "2019 Annual Report on China's Home Appliance Industry" released by the China Household Electrical Appliance Research Institute and the National Home Appliance Industry Center, the scale of domestic home appliance retail sales in 2019 was 802.3 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of -2.2%.
 
The home appliance industry is already a saturated market. According to data from GFK and Zhongyikang, the retail sales of home appliances (excluding 3C) in mainland China were 132.6 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 36%.
 
According to AVC data, in the first quarter of 2020, the domestic retail volume of refrigerators was 4.86 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 22.6%, and the retail sales were 13 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 28.0%; the retail volume of air conditioners was 5.24 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 46.6%, and the retail sales were 14.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 58.1%; the retail volume of washing machines was 6.03 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 27.4%, and the retail sales were 10.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.8%.
 
Under the storm, it is difficult for traditional home appliance giants to inspire new vitality with just a simple layout of home appliances. And the giants who are experienced in home appliances have begun to board the big ship of smart home.
 
Relevant information from Haier Smart Home shows that it is promoting the transformation, upgrading and implementation of the "5+7+N" smart home scenario solution worldwide. According to Haier Smart Home's 2019 annual financial report, in 2019, the number of smart home appliance activations increased by 63%, the number of monthly active users of the Smart Home APP increased by 350%, the number of monthly active scenarios increased by 142%, and the IoT revenue was 4.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68%.
 
Midea also launched the Meiju APP developed by Midea IoT Company as the entrance to Midea's smart home. As of the first half of 2019, the total number of users exceeded 36 million. In order to promote the development of smart homes, Midea has also launched relevant cooperation with Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud to accelerate Midea's development in AIoT.
 
In the vast sea of ​​smart homes, in addition to traditional home appliance giants, there are also ambitious new forces.

The ambitions of new forces

The well-known domestic top four "Huami OV" have been fighting fiercely in the field of smartphones.
 
Now that smart home is an important entrance to the Internet of Things, "Huami OV" will definitely not miss it. In addition, as the dividends of smartphones are gradually reaching their peak, smart home has become another area with more gold to be mined. Xiaomi, which
 
has long been involved in smart home, proposed the "1+4+X" strategy for smart home at the end of last year. 1 is Xiaomi's starting business smartphones, 4 is TVs, smart speakers, routers and notebooks, and X is provided by various companies and cooperative companies in the ecological chain. At the beginning of this year, Xiaomi announced that it would invest 10 billion yuan in All in AIoT in the next five years.
 
Huawei, which has turned around, is not to be outdone in smart home. At present, Huawei's HiLink platform has exceeded 50 million users, and the total shipments of IoT devices have reached more than 150 million. Huawei takes "entry + connection + ecology" as its strategy, and develops "1+8+X" as its core. 1 is smartphones, 8 is eight major businesses such as PC, tablet, TV, and audio, and X is mobile office, smart home, sports and health, etc.
 
Among "Huami OV", except Xiaomi and Huawei, the rest of "OV" are also ready to move into smart home.
 

When OPPO released the OPPO Reno4 series, it also launched three smart hardware products, including headphones, bracelets, and mobile routers. Liu Bo, president of OPPO China, said that OPPO will enter the smart TV industry. VIVO also announced a long time ago that it would build an IoT ecosystem and test the waters in the smart home market.
 
The entry of various new and old forces into the smart home market has made the invisible flames of war in the smart home battlefield spread more vigorously. However, despite the large number of smart home players, there is still no player who can respond to the call and impress consumers.
 

Smart home one-man show?

It cannot be denied that many players have emerged in the smart home industry, but the smart home industry is far from being so popular in attracting consumers.
 
Data from the "2019 China Smart Home Industry Market Prospects Research Report" released by the China Business Industry Research Institute shows that in terms of smart home market penetration, the penetration rate in the United States, Norway and other countries has reached 30%, while China has only 4.9%. The
 
"unintelligent" nature of smart homes, high prices and limited access opportunities are all factors that cannot impress consumers. Although the war between major manufacturers in the field of smart speakers has been fierce in recent years, it is also necessary to see that the price war behind this cannot be ignored.
 
At the same time, in terms of smart homes, apart from the local excitement, there are no particularly outstanding players in the overall aspect. How to further win a comprehensive victory in smart homes is the number one problem for many players in smart homes.
 
In short, with the advancement of technology, the infinite possibilities of smart homes will be further stimulated. In the tide of the times, whether it is old home appliance players or new forces in other fields, they all want to catch the Noah's Ark heading to the new world. With so many players competing for the top spot, how to impress the on-the-spot consumers is the key for players who want to take the lead in the smart home trend...