Smart home controllers are standing in front of a trillion-dollar market

Electronics Enthusiasts Network reported (Text/Huang Shanming) With the prevalence of smart homes, smart home control systems have also begun to become popular. As a smart home system platform, home appliances and home appliances are the main control objects, and a variety of technologies are used to build an efficient dominant control management system. The core of the smart home control system is the smart home controller, and the smart controller is also the core and key component of electronic products, equipment, devices or systems.

The important role of smart controllers

Under the current trend of product intelligence and networking, the continuous improvement of terminal functions has brought more requirements for the deployment of smart controllers. The working principle of the smart controller is mainly: by sensing external information, it is transmitted to the controller, and then the controller infers and makes decisions, and then the actuator performs the corresponding behavior.

The main functions of the smart controller are control information, feedback information, etc., and it plays the role of "nerve center" in the entire intelligent control system. The product is usually composed of a detector, a controller, an actuator, a process object, etc.

Among them, the detector is mainly used to receive and process the output signal into a feedback signal, and input the feedback signal and the input signal into the controller together; the controller processes the signal according to the predetermined intelligent control program to generate a control signal, and transmits it to the actuator; finally, the actuator transmits the execution signal to the process object.

At present, the intelligent controller mainly includes hardware and algorithms. The hardware is mainly composed of, and the cost of this part of upstream raw materials is the highest. Among them, the cost of IC chips accounts for 22.86%, the cost of MOS tubes accounts for 15.32%, the cost is 11.40%, the cost of various hardware accounts for 10.70%, the cost of diodes and triodes accounts for 8.02%, the cost of resistors accounts for 5.64%, and other costs account for 26.06%.

In terms of specific practices, the MCU chip appropriately reduces the frequency and specifications of the central processing unit, and integrates peripheral interfaces such as memory, counters, A/D conversion, etc. on a single chip, and processes the control system through pre-written intelligent control algorithms.

From the market data, according to Sullivan data, the global intelligent controller market size reached US$1.5 trillion (approximately RMB 10.78 trillion) in 2019, and is expected to reach US$2 trillion (approximately RMB 14.38 trillion) in 2024. The scale of China's smart controller market will reach 3806.1 billion yuan in 2024, with a compound growth rate of 12.5% ​​from 2020 to 2024. The

downstream of smart controllers is the application field, which is mainly used in the fields of home appliances, power tools and industrial equipment, smart buildings and homes, health and care products, etc. According to public data statistics in 2020, automotive electronics has the highest market share, reaching 24%, followed by 16% for home appliances and 13% for power tools and industrial equipment.

Among them, home appliances mainly include refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, induction cookers, dishwashers, rice cookers, etc., which are used for home appliances control of cooling and heating, cleaning and washing, food processing, and environmental control in residents' homes.

There are still a lot of opportunities in the smart controller market

From the market point of view, smart controllers belong to the trillion-level market, but in China, there are still no giant companies in this market, and the market concentration is not high. Among the more well-known domestic companies, such as Tuobang Co., Ltd., Heertai, Yingtang Intelligent Control, Langke Intelligent, Hejing Technology, Bestek, Zhenbang Intelligent, etc., only Tuobang Co., Ltd. and Heertai have a scale of more than 10 billion yuan, and the rest are less than 10 billion yuan.

Well-known foreign companies such as Diehl and Invensys have occupied most of the global market share due to their early development, while Chinese companies account for less than 10% of the global share. However, with the enhancement of the technical strength of domestic manufacturers and the gradual release of domestic dividends, coupled with the impact of the epidemic in the past few years, many orders have poured into the domestic market, which is beneficial to the development of the domestic smart controller market.

As a midstream component, smart controllers have a high dependence on the prosperity of the downstream market. With the rapid rise of the smart home market and the acceleration of product intelligence, the scale of the smart controller market has also continued to increase.

According to public data, the scale of China's smart home market in 2021 will be about 588 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%, and the shipment volume of smart home products will be about 210 million units. It is estimated that by 2024, the scale of China's smart home market will exceed the trillion mark.

At the same time, the smart home market has also begun to prosper in recent years. In terms of the number of companies, there are currently 14,000 major companies in China's smart home industry. The number of registered companies in 2021 reached 2,802, the highest in recent years. As of early September, the number of registered companies in 2022 has exceeded 1,000.

The influx of a large number of players proves the optimism about the industry. Taking household appliances as an example, the penetration rate of household appliances using frequency conversion technology has increased significantly year by year, becoming one of the important driving factors for expanding the growth space of the home appliance industry. Frequency conversion technology is a core technology that effectively improves the efficiency of home appliances and reduces electrical appliance losses.

According to Wind data, in 2019, the penetration rate of frequency conversion refrigerators has reached 25.58%, and the penetration rate of frequency conversion air conditioners has reached 45.17%. Especially in recent years, the penetration rate of household fans has reached 15% in 2020, the penetration rate of range hoods has reached 10%, and the penetration rate of dishwashers has reached 8%. With the increase in BLDC penetration, the share of smart controllers will also increase.

In the small household appliance market, according to Frost & Sullivan's forecast, by 2024, China's small household appliance market size is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan, and the compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2024 will reach 9.77%. At present, the average number of small household appliances owned by Chinese households is less than 10, but in Europe and the United States, the data is around 20-30, so the market size is even expected to double. The growth of these markets will increase the demand for smart controllers.

On the other hand, due to the accelerated iteration speed of terminal products such as smart homes, the functions of smart terminals have begun to become more complex and integrated, and the demand for smart controllers for a single smart terminal is also increasing.

Judging from the data in 2020, even under the influence of the epidemic, traditional household appliances have declined, but some smart homes have performed well, such as microwave ovens, dishwashers, and smart toilets, with sales increasing by 41%, 31%, and 27% year-on-year, respectively.

In general, as an industry with a short product cycle and fast replacement, the intelligent controller industry has high requirements for the response speed of the R&D and production teams. Domestic manufacturers have also begun to continuously increase their R&D investment and have formed a certain amount of technical accumulation. Some companies have even jointly developed and designed with upstream manufacturers, and even independently developed and produced terminal products, starting from OEM to ODM and JDM, and gradually transforming the added value of products. Domestic intelligent controllers are standing in front of a trillion-dollar market.