According to a new market research report recently released by OC & C Strategy Consultants, the growing popularity of smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home will result in an explosion in sales.
The report predicts that by 2022, smart speakers in the United States and the United Kingdom annual sales will grow to a staggering 40 billion US dollars, well above this year's 2 billion US dollars.
The report said that this substantial increase is mainly due to the growth of the Amazon smart speaker Amazon Echo audience.
The forecast goes far beyond estimates of smart speaker sales a few years ago.Although there is no exact comparison, a report published by RBC Capital Markets recently predicted that by 2020 Amazon will simply be producing Alexa voice equipment 100 to 110 billion in sales, including equipment sales and voice shopping.
Voice shopping will be the next trend of the times
In addition, the new report believes that the rapid popularization of smart speakers means that we will also see the rise of voice technology products shopping industry.
Thirteen percent of U.S. households now have smartphones, 36 percent of them often use their smart assistants to make everyday purchases, according to the report, and 10% of households have smartphones in the UK, of which 16% Use it for regular shopping.
More people now use smart speakers for at least one shopping experience, and they are not regular voice-shoppers: in the United States, 62% of smart speaker owners use voice-over shopping, compared with 44% in the UK.
The report also found that people with smart speakers tend to be younger, richer, and more likely to live in families with children, all of which may in their own way lead to more voice shopping. That is, young People often get faster access to new technologies, and even if the price is high, the rich will choose newer and easier-to-use technologies that are often too busy for major audiences to complete their shopping locally and to Alexa or Google Home Voice Assistant for help.
Of course, the forecast for the above report is in an optimistic way: Currently, the products that can be purchased through voice shopping are basically low-value products that are used as a one-time purchase, grocery store (20%), entertainment %), Electronics (17%), and clothing (8%) were the main categories of purchases, with only 39% of consumers saying they trusted smart speaker personalization advice, while most were just buying their familiar thing.
Low-cost Chinese smart speaker market 2017 sales exceeded 1 million units
The United States and Europe, smart speakers have also made rapid progress in the Chinese market.According to the report of "China Smart Speaker Market Analysis" released by the authoritative research firm GfK (one of the world's top five market research companies) in October 2017, 2015 The annual sales volume of smart speakers in China was only 10,000 units, up to 60,000 units in 2016 and over 100,000 units in January-August 2017. With the introduction of many new products in the third quarter of 2017, the sales volume of smart speakers Is there a clear leap.
For the entire 2017 year, the more important time point is during the Double 11 Shopping Festival period. The data shows that on the day of the 2017 Double 11 only, Ali's Tmall Genie smart speakers sold more than 1 million units at a price of 99 yuan. Obviously, the low-price promotion strategy stimulated the sales volume of Tmall Genie, and at the same time it also promoted the Chinese smart speaker market to enter the million-dollar sales level.
At the same time, ding ding smart speakers, millet AI speakers, cool dog smart speakers and other products are also achieved in November and December sales growth.According to the ding ding officially released data, its mini smart speaker ding dong TOP Double 11 the same day the total sales exceeded one million mark.Of course, the reason for such sales is also the price, Buzz TOP Jingdong PLUS members and coupons double discount efforts, double 11 the same day to hand price only 49 yuan, setting a domestic intelligence Speaker market sales price of the new low.
Although Ali, millet, cool dog to low prices to attract consumers, but the report shows that the overall smart speaker market in China, the proportion of products below 200 yuan is continuously reduced, 300 to 600 yuan price segment of the product has reached the proportion of 80%. With the sale of high-end new products, 600 yuan to 1,000 yuan gradually squeeze the middle of the product price segment.
Report shows that as of October 2017, there are many new smart speakers on the Chinese market, there are Ali's Lynx Wizard, millet AI speakers, Himalaya Xiaoya speakers, Jingdong Buzz 2 generations, go out to ask TicHome, Rokid Pebble and many more.
Although the domestic speaker manufacturers have achieved very good sales data in 2017, alarming low-price promotion tactics can not help but worry about the market. In a rapidly expanding market, the market is likely to fall into a price war or even profit-oriented , Contrary to normal market rules.
2017 China smart speaker market has four trends:
First, all the manufacturers to join the smart home entrance of the snatch is conducive to the smart speaker market promotion;
Second, audio manufacturers actively cooperate with technology companies, will lead a wave of the main sound quality speaker products;
Third, millet and other large manufacturers to join, with its brand influence, the fan effect, the advantages of offline channels will accelerate the growth rate of intelligent speaker market;
Fourthly, there is a serious scene of homogenization of products on the market at present. Although the appearance of innovative products is more likely to win the eyeball, it is difficult for product innovation to drive the premium effect.
China's smart speaker market development restrictions have the following three points
First, the low penetration rate of smart home is the main reason that the function of smart home control center can not be cycled. China's smart home market needs a single product that can hit the pain points of consumers to subvert, enabling consumers to form smart home thinking.
Second, different Western and Western lifestyles, Western consumers themselves have the habit of using the living room;
Third, manufacturers have to get together and ignore the voice of the consumer interactive experience technology, the current consumer feedback far-field recognition is poor, a high rate of wake-up call, continuous dialogue instability and poor understanding of the semantic issues.