Night fell, in the brightly lit Shenzhen metropolitan area, Fuyong, manholes, Longgang several areas of thousands of small and medium-sized speakers perched in a few foundry, brought together hundreds of thousands of workers, they are in the bottom of the industry chain, making the most meager Hard money, and not far from a big change, they or will become the 'victim' of industrial upgrading, abandoned by the times.
The reason there is no him, with the rise of the global smart speaker market, industrial upgrading, product iteration is the trend of the times, and as a foreign trade-oriented Shenzhen, these small and medium-sized manufacturers because of weak production technology unable to participate in the smart speaker industry chain, they are hidden in smart speakers Of the underground rivers and lakes, the market left little time for them.This is the wisdom thing lasted a week, visiting dozens of objects, field survey Shenzhen audio industry chain intuitive experience.
The so-called 'underground rivers and lakes' have two meanings. The first floor is relative to the brands and products we perceive. Behind it is a long supply chain including chips, modules, components, solution providers, technology providers, foundries And so on, they are hidden behind the halo of intelligent speakers, not known to the world.
Another layer is the smart speaker market there are still many unknown companies, compared to the well-known Internet giant, and Star Enterprise, which is located in the middle and lower reaches of the industry chain, there is no technology, relying on cheap labor, earn If you are an Internet giant, a Star startup is at the top of the Pyramid, they are the bottom of the Pyramid.
Intelligent speaker industry is a rivers and lakes, it is a huge 'underground rivers and lakes', every player has its play, every player must find their own way, or will be eliminated by this arena.
And this 'underground rivers and lakes' is in the Pearl River Delta, the core is in Shenzhen. Here brings together intelligent speaker industry chain in all aspects of the middle and lower reaches of the manufacturers, involving hundreds of thousands of personnel, but also solutions, products, Almost every smart speaker goes through here, and even many speakers you have not seen come from here.
Here is the production of the world's speakers, more than 80% of the world's speakers produced here, and then exported to overseas. Around foreign trade, here also has a huge and complex industrial chain cluster. Here is a hot spot, is a mysterious Place, it is hidden in the 'light' under the "underground rivers and lakes."
From Wi-Fi speakers to smart speakers
Speaking of intelligent speakers of this arena, we must start from the previous wave of Wi-Fi speakers, or go back to the Bluetooth speaker or tablet, etc., because it is behind a set of large industrial chain, and to some extent this set Industrial chain is the same, their development also represents the evolution of the domestic smart speaker.
Around 2012 and around 2013, Wi-Fi speakers began to rise in the country, it is what we call the Internet speakers, networking can play streaming music and other content, can be counted as early smart speakers. At the time in Shenzhen at least There are dozens of companies ranging in size doing Wi-Fi speakers, including some famous international brands such as B & O, Sonos, Bose and so on.
(Sonos Wi-Fi speakers)
As a veteran of more than a decade working in the field of audio, Song Shaopeng, the founder of Midot Technology, is also very optimistic about the trend of speaker networking, leaving Microsoft Asia Research Center this year to move toward entrepreneurship. In 2014, the first generation of 'sugar cube' was developed and received overseas streaming music services for export overseas.
The development of Wi-Fi speaker does not seem to go well, starting from 2015, Wi-Fi speakers on the market one after another out of the stage, each also began to no longer produce Wi-Fi speakers, leaving only Bluetooth speakers continue to sell well. From the point of view, this wave of enterprises doing domestic Wi-Fi speakers generally die or transformed, and no one sold more than 100,000 units.People practitioners Wang Baochuan said: 'The overall domestic sales of Wi-Fi speakers may both Less than 100,000 units. "Wi-Fi speakers also seem to be proven to be fake in the country.
Foreign markets slightly better, Wang Baochuan said "in the domestic production of overseas Wi-Fi speakers add up to at least a million orders of magnitude, such as Sonos own Wi-Fi speakers is this magnitude, although they are international brands, factories But also in China. "But overall speaking, the export of speakers in the Pearl River Delta region in Shenzhen is still centered on Bluetooth speakers." There are 600,000 speakers exported from Shenzhen a month, which are targeted at underdeveloped countries. "
About 2016 Wi-Fi speakers in the country 'dead' after the intelligent speaker began to gradually enter the field of vision, which has two key time nodes, one is the Amazon Alexa platform open, one is in January 2017 at CES (International Consumer Electronics Show) held in Las Vegas, USA.
With the opening up of Alexa in 2016 and the popularity of Amazon Echo, two groups of people have been set up in China. After a wave of studies, they started to study smart speakers to create a domestic voice interactive system. Another group of people rely on Alexa for foreign trade and production Smart speakers are exported overseas.
(Left for Amazon Echo, right for Google Home)
2017 CES detonated smart speakers, smart speakers such as Amazon, Google and other smart speakers at the show, combined with the rapid development of intelligent speaker sales, the players in the Shenzhen industry chain more tempted to start more research and development 'learning ', For domestic and foreign introduction of smart speakers (mainly foreign), to further promote the intelligent speaker industry chain.
For example Mitang Linkplay technology and is the first two to get Amazon Alexa official certification of technology solution providers, Song Shaopeng talked about, but they have more than 30 customers to make intelligent speakers, access Alexa exported overseas, the number of products have been exported Hundreds of K.
Roughly speaking, around the overseas market to do smart speaker (product / brand) manufacturers have nearly 100. If you expand the entire smart speaker industry chain (chips, software, testing, programs, foundry, etc.), hundreds of certainly Some. Put aside smart speakers, but more than cross-border e-commerce are more than 100. So count, the number of players around the world to do smart speaker industry generally outline there.
The domestic speaker to do a lot less smart speakers, on the one hand the domestic voice interaction system has not polished perfect, and to create this platform and the ecological and not small and medium-sized companies can afford, the domestic market is still early; the other hand, the source In the market is far from up, and millet, Ali and Jingdong played a price war, resulting in many players discouraged.
But smart speakers for the domestic market also has dozens, such as Ali, Jingdong, millet, Sony, Sonos, go out to ask, the Himalayas, etc., the product includes the listed unlisted, famous nameless. , Yun-Gang, founder of Di Yun Technology just talked about this industry chain, they have already signed a NDA (confidentiality agreement) to have more than 100 companies.
And Song Shaopeng also said that some of his clients are also asking when the domestic voice interactive system is mature and they also have access to the domestic voice system to enter the Chinese market.It can be seen that the domestic smart speaker market is still in its infancy and is not mature enough. Speaker less players, a great industry chain.
Shenzhen's routines and games
Shenzhen is a magical land, always walking in the forefront of the times, always chasing the vents, even if being "fell." Swarm is a normal Shenzhen .Reverse to see, DVD fire, Shenzhen rush to do Card, program; Later was MP3 / MP4, tablet, smart (cottage) phone, and the last wave of VR.
Shenzhen is like a warriors in rivers and lakes, constantly trying to impact each wave possible, and behind them have their routines and rhythms.
An industry veteran Li Deshun talked about, the consumer electronics is a pulse and rhythm, in January each year CES is the global benchmark, Apple, Google, Sony, Samsung and other big companies big show concept. CES finished is the Chinese New Year , We eat and drink, we began to look back at those giants show what concepts, and our domestic industry chain to 'learn' what, they began to do some research.
Such as April and April to come up with something to this time foreign customers to see if the domestic industry chain can make some giants at the CES display products.So in April and June began to invest in research and development, June There will be some product molding, and then started production in June or August.Wait until September is the United States back to school season, is a consumer season in the United States, we began the first experimental market to see what to sell well.
Then we started to order repurchase, mass production in September, followed by the United States in November of Thanksgiving, the equivalent of the domestic 'double eleven', we make a hard sell, make a fortune.
Then come to the end of a year, into December everyone began to prepare CES Demo, and then welcome the new year's CES. 'Every year the export product is such a rhythm.' Li Deshun concluded with a banter.
As a foreign-oriented city, Shenzhen is the tide of the direction of the target, Li Deshun's words also revealed to some extent, Shenzhen enterprises play.If one after another 2016 players have entered the field of smart speakers, then January 2017 CES Detonated the smart speaker industry chain in Shenzhen.
Zhou Xiang, a Shenzhen-based programmer, said that their company invested tens of millions of smart speakers last year and developed products in May and June this year. It has already sold thousands of products to domestic B-side customers. At that time Millet, Ali's speakers did not come out, a lot of people come to our company advice '.
Song Shaopeng said that as a solution provider, Metec Technology has 30 customers and hundreds of thousands of intelligent speaker products exported overseas through their solutions. Diyun Technologies also mentioned that they are also working for a manufacturer Floor smart speakers, connecting Alexa exports overseas.
Visible, we are on the smart speaker trend of this chase upgrade, but the pursuit of this unit is mainly driven by export-oriented, products and profits are constantly increasing while the domestic manufacturers of smart speakers is relatively bleak, the above mentioned Zhou Xiang Talking about the beginning of many foundries can not take orders, many find their business is also hesitant and wait and see.
Wisdom things the field survey Shenzhen Consumer Electronics Center - Huaqiang North and found Huaqiang North's consumer electronics store, filled with a variety of local brand speakers and cottage speakers, but are Bluetooth speakers, no Wi-Fi speakers found, and more Do not say smart speakers here are mostly dozens of Bluetooth speakers to a hundred or two block price, relying on low prices into the market.
(Huaqiang North Electronics City sales of speakers)
What's even more interesting is that in a random visit to the West, there is even one speaker seller who does not know what a smart speaker is, while more speaker sellers call the smart speaker too expensive or useless, and to some extent this also reflects The intelligent speaker in the country's awareness and sales, as well as production-oriented Shenzhen, or cheap Bluetooth speakers.
Intelligent speaker industry 'two laws'
Smart speaker is a chain of long industries, including chip makers, software vendors, solution providers, component manufacturers, OEMs, brands, and voice interactive system providers, content providers and so on.
Shenzhen involved in all aspects of the intelligent speaker industry chain, while the core is concentrated in program providers and foundries. Overall this chain of no fewer than 300 players, if coupled with the relevant (Bluetooth) speaker foundry, Then the industry chain involved more than a thousand players.
And after the brand of smart speakers in Shenzhen, both for domestic and foreign there are hundreds, of which export brands accounted for at least 80% .As the Chinese ranked eighth in the sea brand Anker, the smart speakers access Alexa sold overseas.
In the domestic smart speaker industry chain, the same observance of 'two laws', of which only the top players in the field really involved in building smart speakers and get 80% of the head of the profits, many more chain players are Supporting role, rely on cheap labor and the meager profits accessories, carve up the remaining 20% of the profits.
Lv Yanhai, general manager of Moore Acoustics, said that almost all smart speakers are produced in Shenzhen, and major companies have research and development centers in Shenzhen, which shows the importance of Shenzhen. However, he has changed his mind and involved many players in smart speakers. However, The core players involved in smart speakers in each area is only about 10 or so.
In the upper reaches of the chip side, mainly MTK (MediaTek), Amlogic, All Technology, Jun is, Rockchip, Hangzhou Guoxin and other companies, chip R & D requires a lot of input, can really do not have many players.
'Program providers, not large enough to landing in the country, the core of the main players around 5 - 10. Down the relevant program makers may have twenty or thirty, and then down in the low program providers A lot of, Nanshan, Futian each district has dozens, but this program Shangsi dead very frequently, basically no more than two years, "Lv Yanhai laments .And wise things previously learned to be able to smart speakers There are first landing on the program provider, sound-chi technology, Linkplay, Midot Technology, Moore Acoustics, Di Yun technology.
In the foundry, in the Pearl River Delta generation of large foundries only about 10, such as Foxconn, KONE Electronics, Taiwan Industrial Co., Shenzhen, three Connaught, Fen up, etc. However, if extended to the entire speaker field foundries, Shenzhen Fuyong, Shajing, Longgang there are thousands of small factories in several places.
It can be seen that in Shenzhen, as the center of the intelligent speaker industry chain, mainly in the program, foundry and export brands in several areas, the core of the head players in each area, but about 10, the core of the industry chain as a whole but 100. They are the core players in smart speakers, occupy the smart speaker market head profits.
However, the periphery of these core players is a large number of related supporting enterprises as well as the bottom of the industry chain manufacturers, these enterprises thousands, involving a population of hundreds of thousands, constitute a huge underground rivers and lakes, segmentation of thin profits.
Small and medium-sized speaker factory survival crisis
Intelligent things learned through the smart speaker industry chain, in Shenzhen, Xixiang, Fuyong, Shajing, Longgang and other areas gathered a large number of speakers factory. What they produce speakers, whether to carry out industrial upgrading, the intelligent speaker how to treat their living conditions How? Has become our biggest concern, so we in Xixiang, Fuyong, Shajing generation, on-site investigation of the survival of these enterprises.
When Wisdom arrived in Xixiang, it was discovered that it had been upgraded from an original factory into an office building and a commercial building. Because the rent in the downtown area is also getting higher and higher, it has been transformed into a commercial house. Before our factory Here, because can not afford the high rent moved to Fuyong. 'Practitioner Wang Baochuan said.
(Xixiang imminent removal of the old plant)
In Fuyong and Shajing areas, where a large number of small and medium sized foundries gather, ranging from dozens of people to one or two hundred people, Wang Baochuan told Wisdom things that there are no fewer than 300 loudspeaker companies in Fuyong Prefecture alone, and more in the manhole area. Among them are Bluetooth speakers, multimedia speakers, and stage audio.
Wisdom things came to Fuyong, a large speaker factory - Guanglong audio factory, a factory staff said that they plant in Shenzhen, a famous local audio factory, about 1,000 employees, mainly to do home theater, Bluetooth speakers, Products exported to Europe and the United States, Japan and other places, on the one hand, they do OEM, on the one hand also do their own brand, the main foreign markets.
When asked about Wi-Fi speakers and smart speakers, he said that he had previously done two Wi-Fi speakers and later did not do it, but the smart speaker has not done that. As a foreign trade-oriented audio factory , Even did not produce smart speakers, on the one hand reflect the smart speaker foundry threshold, on the other hand also reflects the direction of these large audio factory can not see the future, hesitant to wait and see, refused to put into the production line.
'Small speaker foundries and this wave of smart speakers is not related.' Solution providers Zhou Xiang said personally experienced intelligent speaker to create the whole process, he believes that smart speakers are not small factories can do, and even some big manufacturers are not necessarily able to get , 'The beginning of the product defect rate of 30% to 40%', and this is mainly concentrated in the microphone part.
We talk to Zhou Xiang in the night while talking about talking about business from the people's livelihood. 'Small speaker manufacturers dozens or hundreds of people scale, rely on intensive labor can not do, they mainly make Bluetooth speaker money And now the millet came out to kill the profits, these small factories have no money earned, they can only rely on dozens of Bluetooth speakers to take the amount of this piece of profit is the most meager The sound in the small speaker factory position.
Think about it, the smart speaker will be the future of the speaker category, the entire world market in the future will be in this direction, and the entire iteration of the market cycle may be 3 to 5 years, the future smart speakers will continue to erode the Bluetooth speaker market. Inability to participate in the smart speaker industry chain, if the small manufacturers can not be completed in the next few years to upgrade, may be the next batch of 'sacrifice' out of the warriors.
There are thousands of such small factories in Shenzhen alone. If 100 people are counted in each plant, 100,000 people in Shenzhen produce loudspeakers. If the future can not be upgraded or transformed smoothly, 100,000 people Survival crisis is a social problem.
Zhou Xiang also optimistically said: 'They will think of ways, and do not complete the upgrade is to die. Their channel capacity is very strong, can survive for so many years, have two brushes.' And perhaps this is also Shenzhen A microcosm
Where do they come from?
One of the unique charms of Shenzhen lies in 'trial and error, exploration, pragmatism'. They will not miss any outlet, swarm into a new field to try, explore, and even a bad blood stream will continue to explore trial and error A tuyere.
However, many times, they are also forced to do so.It is found through investigation that these people come from all aspects of the industrial chain, and as the previous wave of overcapacity, they must find new breakthrough points to survive Among them are mobile phones, tablets, chipsets, bluetooth speakers, routers and so on, entering the field of smart speakers in trial and error.
'Intelligent speakers will become some people's life-saving straw', Mntang Song Shaopeng talked about technology, such as tablet PCs, cottage phone that wave, the amount of exceptionally powerful, the relevant program providers, foundries have a greater impact, they will Very active transition to the field of intelligent speakers. And this wave of people is also converted to the most intelligent speaker.
Another example is the beginning of Moorish acoustic Bluetooth speakers started, then catch up with the time to do a Wi-Fi speakers, and then made noise-canceling headphones, with front-end acoustics experience, transition to smart voice solutions provider.
But there are players All in smart speakers it? Chi things seem rare, we are relatively rational .In addition to Linkplay betting smart speakers, other companies are more for the field of voice interaction to provide product solutions.If the Moore acoustics The main line is to talk about voice TV program, smart speaker program is only a smaller part of their business. Di Yun technology is also around the home scene to explore more diverse smart products landing.
So this wave of smart speaker market bubble big? I think it will be a lot of people's questions.Mangtang Song Shaopeng said that this should be divided into two pieces, the domestic smart speakers is still very early, investors are also very cautious, Domestic brands and products are still very few, not enough to talk about the bubble, while the export-oriented smart speakers are constantly rising, there are many players continue to enter the overseas market is still vast, it is hard to say that the bubble.
Moore Acoustic Lv Yanhai that domestic intelligent speaker companies are likely to lose, this is ultimately the giants of the market, and they will focus on the program. 'But the sound of this wave of the past, will produce new points, but also There will be a lot of iteration and demand. 'His words also represent the Shenzhen people's future-oriented spirit of seeking.
Impact from Internet giants
When it comes to the survival of the underground speaker in Shenzhen, this intelligent speaker has to mention the influence of the Internet giant on them, where it is divided into two waves: the Internet giant and the domestic Internet giant.
(From the left followed by Ding Dong Speaker A1, Amazon Echo, Google Home, Lynx Wizard X1)
For the foreign-oriented Shenzhen, Internet giants such as Amazon and Google have made a significant impact on them, opening up a new wave of foreign trade opportunities in Shenzhen with the opening up of the Amazon and Google Voice interactive systems, and many local enterprises will register a company abroad , And then the production of speaker hardware in Shenzhen, access to Amazon Alexa or Google Home, to enter the international market.Micom just use the technology solutions smart speakers have reached hundreds of thousands of export volume, we can see this market is hot. Block of enterprises and the upcoming export of products to nearly 100 companies.
However, through the wisdom of the observation found that most of these products are still going the bottom line of exporting a typical dialogue is that 'we have access to Amazon Alexa, we have a lower cost, the price is cheaper than the Amazon Echo' And to some extent, we are still at the bottom of the value chain, or continue to be profitable by sales.
This morning in Beijing on September 28 this year, Amazon released a series of three smart speakers, but New Echo's user rating is much lower than the previous Echo and Dot, visible as the user awareness of smart speakers to enhance, not only satisfied with the voice Interaction, began to consider more product experience.If you want to do the export of domestic companies, do not take full account of design, sound quality and other factors, but by low-cost strategy, the future may also 'run into the wall'.
The impact of the domestic Internet giant on both sides of Shenzhen is also on the one hand with the millet speaker 299 yuan to kill the market and the opening of Ali Jingdong intelligent speaker price war, coupled with the domestic market sales of smart speakers, directly limiting the number of players into the game The possibility of giant giants to make the profits of the industry become negligible, small and medium-sized firms how could have the opportunity to compete with the giants it.
On the other hand, with the maturity of the voice technology of the Internet giant, but also to more solutions provider in Shenzhen to provide an opportunity for both domestic and international companies can make use of program vendors local products, with the corresponding chip makers, program providers and foundries Will get more profit.
Can only say that the current domestic smart speaker market is still early days, the industry is immature development.At present, the giant will be smart speakers as their own 'training ground' for grinding voice technology to build the entire ecosystem.With the domestic voice platform Mature, more opportunities and competition will follow.
Conclusion: smart speakers 'underground rivers and lakes'
Through the investigation of Shenzhen smart speaker industry chain, we touched the whole picture of smart speaker 'underground rivers and lakes' as much as possible and found the following conclusions:
1. Domestic smart speaker market is still in the initial stage of the industry, making domestic smart speaker brand only dozens of players, industry access threshold higher. As domestic giants to smart speakers as a training ground for grinding technology, set off a price war , But also greatly enhance the market access threshold, many companies prohibitive, the domestic smart speaker survival of the soil is not optimistic.
2. The entire domestic smart speaker industry chain showed a 'pyramid' structure, but the core players on the hundreds, harvesting head profits, and the broad supporting industries and the bottom is excluded in the smart speaker chain, small and medium speaker foundry thousands of Above, hidden in the bottom of the industrial chain, making meager hard-earned money.
3. With the opening up of the Amazon Google Voice Assistant, more and more enterprises rely on them to go out of the way, this wave of nearly 100 companies, and there are a growing number of enterprises and products to be exported overseas; This is a huge Opportunity, but most of these products are taking the low-end route, with the upgrading of foreign users experience products, whether the real occupation of the international market is still unknown.
4. Thousands of hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized speaker factory is currently unable to participate in the intelligent speaker industry chain division, with the upgrading of speaker products, the industry will face shuffling, many small and medium speaker factory in the future worrisome.
Despite the problems facing Shenzhen or the smart speaker industry chain, more than one visit to Shenzhen by Zhi Dongxi was touched by this hot land.Under the blue sky, sea and beach, a group of people from all corners of the globe abandoned the past, In this open-territories expansion, meritorious service, they continue to try and continue to explore, perhaps out of speculation, perhaps out of frustration, continue to seize the outlet, they established a huge 'underground rivers and lakes' become the era of beach-goers.
Smart speaker in this gathering place, and perhaps a bright future, and perhaps uncertain future. Shenzhen, the 'underground rivers and lakes', will use its play to create its own wonderful chapter.