In 2021, smart speakers will accelerate "disappearance"

There is a small story: two people in the forest, met a big tiger. A quickly took off a pair of lighter sneakers from the back and put them on. B panicked and scolded: "What are you doing, you can't run a tiger even if you change your shoes!" A said, "I just need to run faster than you."

There are many interpretations of this story. From the perspective of "survival", there is nothing wrong with right or wrong, especially in the face of a huge crisis. Such stories are even more uncommon in the commercial market. "You live or die" is the essence of industry competition. When the industry faces "difficulties", the competition will become more intense. When I saw the story "Intelligent Relativity", the first thing that came to my mind was "smart speakers", an industry facing a huge "crisis" this year.

Incremental bottom, how to continue?

Compared with the sales of previous years, the growth of smart speakers in the first half of the year has reached a bottleneck. Data show that in the first half of 2021, the total sales of China's smart speaker market through all channels will be 19.16 million units, a year-on-year increase of 0.4%.

Looking back at the development process of the smart speaker industry in the past few years, it has always attracted the attention of consumers since the product came out, whether it is voice interaction, various control programs, plus various interactive jokes on the Internet, to have a smart speaker. Speakers once became a very "fashionable" thing.

In 2017, the domestic smart speaker market grew by about 2,000%; in 2018, the growth rate reached 800%, and China became the second largest smart speaker market in the world after the United States; in 2019, the domestic market increased by 109.7% year-on-year, also in this year China Replacing the United States as the world's largest smart speaker market.

Then there is no more. Then, the rapid growth will come to an abrupt end in 2020. Although there is a major environmental impact, there is no sign of it. In 2020, the growth of the domestic smart speaker market fell by 8.6% year-on-year. Entering 2021, the market volatility has not subsided. Luotu data shows that the sales volume of China's smart speaker market in the first half of 2021 will be 19.36 million units, a year-on-year increase of only 2.2%. In July, the market began to decline again. In July, the domestic smart speaker market sold 2.33 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 10.7% and a month-on-month decrease of 34.5%. From the perspective of online data (the four major public e-commerce companies), it has become a new low in sales since 2019.

If the decline in sales is only a part, it can even be understood as normal fluctuations, then the disappearance of the smart speaker brand cannot be faked. Last year, Feixun announced its withdrawal from the smart speaker industry, and Tencent Dingdang began to disappear from the public eye, including a large number of "ambitious" home appliance players who began to change smart speakers from "main product" to "edge product", all of which reflect the industry's predicament . Further data shows that after the domestic smart speaker brands increased from 32 brands in 2018 to 37 brands in 2020, they fell back to 34 in the first half of 2021.

From the perspective of the number of products, according to the incomplete statistics of "Intelligent Relativity", in 2019, mainstream brands including Xiaodu, Tmall Genie, Xiaomi Xiaoai, Huawei, 360, Jingdong Cetus and other mainstream brands launched more than 20 different smart products. Speaker products; in 2020, this figure is almost cut in half; in the first half of 2021, in addition to June Tmall Elf released new product E1, July Huawei launched Elf Learning Smart Screen and a new generation of Sound X, and Xiaomi's new generation of smart speakers Xiaomi Sound in August And the new "Tiantian intelligent rotating screen" released by Xiaodu not long ago, the new products of other brands are "disappeared".

To sum up, the tightening of the smart speaker track is not only limited to the issue of sales, but the collective "brake" of the entire industry. Of course, there is another well-known reason for most brands to "turn off", that is, the market position of BAM is too difficult to shake. If Huawei is added, the market share of TOP4 has reached 95.8%.

However, even BAM and Huawei cannot live comfortably in such a big background, and how to break the game still makes them rack their brains.

"Structural adjustment" accelerates, is it changing "running shoes"?

One of the most obvious perceptions is that the competitive strategy of smart speaker head manufacturers this year has begun to shift from market expansion to structural adjustment.

First of all, in terms of product positioning, the functionality of smart speakers is no longer vague but more refined, and each company has a clearer market positioning, launching corresponding products for education, music and young groups.

Since the Xiaodu smart screen first tested the education field in 2018, the "children's section" has always become the highlight of major brands. This year, the war has been upgraded again, including the elf learning smart screen launched by Huawei; "Tmall Elf E1" is also It is positioned as a smart screen product focusing on home learning scenarios; following the launch of the Xiaodu education smart screen last year, Xiaodu has released a smart learning tablet this year. It can be seen that the importance of various brands on educational content has made "education" no longer just a section of the many contents of smart speakers, but a separate individual product.

In terms of screenless products, "sound quality" is still a subdivision factor. Whether Huawei's Sound X or Xiaomi's Sound, they all focus on sound quality improvement. Huawei has continued its cooperation with Devialet, while Xiaomi Sound has adapted functions such as UWB music relay.

For another example, the Tiantian smart rotating screen just launched by Xiaodu mainly focuses on young people. The reversible product design meets the vertical screen needs of young people for short videos and other content, and adds functions such as karaoke and payment. , making it more playable for young people. So far, more and more new smart speakers have corresponding groups behind them, which is different from the previous coverage with one product.

The second aspect of structural adjustment is reflected in the expansion of application scenarios. The starting point of smart speakers is high, and the brand side has great expectations for them, but the "home intelligence revolution" based on smart speakers for many years has always been only a shallow taste. The limitation of application scenarios is a fundamental problem. Smart speakers positioned in home scenarios are always doing trivial tasks such as playing music, checking the weather, setting alarm clocks, etc., which is very different from the original expectations of the industry.

The "brake" of the industry in the past two years has also given the brand side room to adjust. Since last year, Xiaodu has been emphasizing that "breaking the circle" reconstruction scene is one of the key points. In addition to the education field mentioned above, Xiaodu is also making layouts in various scenarios such as medical care, hotels, and automobiles. The user experience of such scenes is even more accessible to Kuaishou, Douyin, Station B, Youku, and National K-song. At the recent press conference, Xiaodu further emphasized "full-scene intelligent life", making the positioning of Xiaodu's intelligent assistant more prominent.

Tmall Genie is also trying to get "Tmall Genie" out of smart speakers. For example, during 618 this year, Tmall Genie launched more than 1,800 products with partners such as USchool, Daoxuehao, and Ecovacs, of which more than 600 are new products released for the first time, which have penetrated into household cleaning, cooking, education, etc. , health and other scenarios. Obviously, creating more scenarios for smart speakers will bring more prospects, which has become the consensus of giant players.

In addition, the biggest trend of structural adjustment is the so-called "high-end" of the industry at this stage. The smart speaker market has experienced the disorderly growth of the "hundred box war" and the brutal elimination of the "price war". After a large number of players have disarmed, coupled with the industry's stagnation, many "survivors", especially the giants, appear Unprecedented "unity", moving in unison to "high-end".

"High-end" is a common topic in the entire smart hardware field in the past two years. Whether it is mobile phones, TVs or smart speakers, they are trying to find new incremental markets through re-layering, and this trend is particularly obvious this year. Cooperation with traditional speaker brands, increasing screen size, and continuous enrichment of content ecology are all becoming solid barriers for various companies to build high-end products. But the most direct manifestation is "price". Taking the newly released smart speaker products as an example, Huawei's elf learning smart screen and the new generation of Sound X are priced at 2,699 yuan and 2,199 yuan respectively; The price of the screen smart speaker also reaches 499; the price of the Xiaodu Tiantian smart rotating screen also starts at 1199 yuan. From one or two hundred yuan to over a thousand, the "price increase revolution" of smart speakers is being staged.

Can the structural adjustment make the industry outperform the tiger? Or is it just a collective “shoe change” by the brand, and perhaps the final result will be different from what we thought. There is a small story: two people in the forest, met a big tiger. A quickly took off a pair of lighter sneakers from the back and put them on. B panicked and scolded: "What are you doing, you can't run a tiger even if you change your shoes!" A said, "I just need to run faster than you."

There are many interpretations of this story. From the perspective of "survival", there is nothing wrong with right or wrong, especially in the face of a huge crisis. Such stories are even more uncommon in the commercial market. "You live or die" is the essence of industry competition. When the industry faces "difficulties", the competition will become more intense. When I saw the story "Intelligent Relativity", the first thing that came to my mind was "smart speakers", an industry facing a huge "crisis" this year.

Incremental bottom, how to continue?

Compared with the sales of previous years, the growth of smart speakers in the first half of the year has reached a bottleneck. Data show that in the first half of 2021, the total sales of China's smart speaker market through all channels will be 19.16 million units, a year-on-year increase of 0.4%.

Looking back at the development process of the smart speaker industry in the past few years, it has always attracted the attention of consumers since the product came out, whether it is voice interaction, various control programs, plus various interactive jokes on the Internet, to have a smart speaker. Speakers once became a very "fashionable" thing.

In 2017, the domestic smart speaker market grew by about 2,000%; in 2018, the growth rate reached 800%, and China became the second largest smart speaker market in the world after the United States; in 2019, the domestic market increased by 109.7% year-on-year, also in this year China Replacing the United States as the world's largest smart speaker market.

Then there is no more. Then, the rapid growth will come to an abrupt end in 2020. Although there is a major environmental impact, there is no sign of it. In 2020, the growth of the domestic smart speaker market fell by 8.6% year-on-year. Entering 2021, the market volatility has not subsided. Luotu data shows that the sales volume of China's smart speaker market in the first half of 2021 will be 19.36 million units, a year-on-year increase of only 2.2%. In July, the market began to decline again. In July, the domestic smart speaker market sold 2.33 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 10.7% and a month-on-month decrease of 34.5%. From the perspective of online data (the four major public e-commerce companies), it has become a new low in sales since 2019.

If the decline in sales is only a part, it can even be understood as normal fluctuations, then the disappearance of the smart speaker brand cannot be faked. Last year, Feixun announced its withdrawal from the smart speaker industry, and Tencent Dingdang began to disappear from the public eye, including a large number of "ambitious" home appliance players who began to change smart speakers from "main product" to "edge product", all of which reflect the industry's predicament . Further data shows that after the domestic smart speaker brands increased from 32 brands in 2018 to 37 brands in 2020, they fell back to 34 in the first half of 2021.