What size will the smart speaker market reach in the future?

Artificial intelligence has exploded in the past two years, and smart speakers have become one of the hottest hardware products. As the annual Double 11 year-end promotion approaches, the battle among giants continues to heat up, with frequent subsidies to hit the lowest prices in history, and consumers are also starting to check various reviews. During last year's Double 11, Alibaba's smart speakers alone sold as many as 1 million units. What sparks will the giants create during this year's Double 11? Who will win this battle for talent?

Everyone wants to cut the cake

As early as 2014, Amazon launched a new concept of smart speaker Echo, breaking the traditional barriers and implanting intelligent voice interaction technology into traditional speakers, thus giving rise to the concept of artificial intelligence speakers. In just three years, Echo sales reached 20 million units, becoming a hot artificial intelligence product.

Ever since Amazon started a craze for smart speakers with AI voice assistants in the U.S. market, domestic giants such as BAT, JD.com, and Xiaomi have all stepped in and quickly launched a "hundred-box war." What are the reasons why technology giants are so fond of them?

Reason 1: The entrance to family life

With the development of the Internet, the design of many products is based on the concepts of "grabbing users' time" and "diverting users' attention from mobile devices". Smart speakers are a good entry point. They are very convenient for setting time, playing music, checking the weather, etc. As a new scene of family life, it will face a market of hundreds of billions of yuan, and with the support of artificial intelligence and machine learning, technological progress will become faster and faster. If you do not participate in it, you will be left far behind by your competitors.

Reason 3: Big Data Collection

We often say that this is an era of big data. The so-called big data is simply a large amount of data, such as the problems users encounter after using smart speakers, their usual operations, etc. By analyzing a large amount of data, we can derive user habits and better understand users and get deeper into their hearts.

With so many choices, which one should you pick?

In order to fulfill their respective strategic layouts, the giants spared no effort to create smart speakers, and the prices have been eye-catching again and again. In the upcoming Double Eleven this year, Alibaba's Tmall Genie has dropped to 89 yuan, and Xiaodu has even hit the lowest price in history at 69 yuan. The prices have all dropped to less than 100 yuan. So which one should we choose from so many smart speakers? The author made a simple comparison:

Content: Tencent wins

As an AI speaker, rich content is essential. After Tencent integrated QQ Music, Kuwo and Kugou Music, it has acquired nearly 90% of the music copyrights on the market and has a library of 20 million genuine songs, forming an absolute advantage in music resources.

In terms of services: Alibaba wins

Part of the reason for Echo's success is its ability to integrate e-commerce services. Alibaba's Tmall Genie followed Echo's example and used its inherent advantages in e-commerce and payment to add shopping and mobile phone recharge functions to the smart speaker, building up its back-end business and service capabilities and using this advantage to stand out.

Ecosystem: Mijia wins

When it comes to smart home in China, we have to mention Mijia, a department store that has everything. Mijia's smart home products cover almost every application scenario of family life, and all of these smart home products can be controlled by Mijia's smart speakers. For those who want to build a smart home, Mijia's smart speakers are definitely the best choice.

Be careful when buying smart speakers

The platforms created by smartphones and smart TVs are "human-computer interaction" platforms, while smart speakers create an unprecedented "voice interaction" platform. In fact, voice interaction is more in line with user habits and has a lower learning cost than other products, but it also faces various security issues.

Not long ago, when a US consumer was using a smart speaker, a certain brand of smart speaker recorded a private conversation without permission and automatically sent the audio to the contacts in the address book. This is simply creepy, and once such private content is obtained by hackers, the consequences will be disastrous.

The information security of smart speakers cannot be ignored. This also warns us that when purchasing smart speakers, we should try to choose well-known brands to ensure the quality and safety of the smart speakers. When using, try to avoid connecting to shared networks in public places to prevent hacker intrusions. If you are in a more sensitive place, you should cut off the power or disconnect the device from the Internet.

Summarize

Domestic smart speakers have been lukewarm in the past two or three years since their launch, but have always been in a state of fierce competition. After a year of hard work, it is time to hand in the year-end paper. What scale will the smart speaker market reach on this year's Double Eleven? Will it be a drizzle or a big explosion? What do you think?