In 2017, following the success of Amazon Echo, China’s tech community sparked a new wave of competition in the smart speaker market. Major players like Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu have either launched or are on the verge of releasing their own smart speaker products. Meanwhile, companies such as JD.com, Go-Ahead, Cheetah Mobile, and Xiaomi have joined the fray. While there may not yet be any definitive rankings from authoritative sources declaring 2017 as the "Year of the Smart Speaker," it's clear that tech companies across the board view smart speakers as the next big frontier.
However, unlike many others focusing on the potential profits from smart hardware, companies like RoboTree are more interested in exploring the limitless possibilities of smart speakers as the central hub of smart homes. A profit-free smart speaker war has quietly begun to unfold.
The smart speaker market has seen a significant downturn. Alibaba was among the first to enter the market with its "Tmall Genie X1" in July. Tencent, too, is rumored to be developing a smart speaker code-named "Ear." JD.com, one of the earliest Chinese companies to venture into smart speakers, launched its "DingDong" speaker as early as January 2016. This product has already seen two generations of flagship models. JD.com's voice control solution collaborates with Harman Kardon and currently supports JD Micro Link, docking with nearly 1,000 home appliance brands. Users can control TVs, lights, air conditioners, curtains, and more via voice commands.
According to JD's intelligence team leader, since the release of the smart speaker, its products have been highly sought after, reaching 100 million views annually in the consumer market. By June, the cumulative sales volume of the DingDong series reached 100 million units. The product design closely mirrors that of Echo. DingDong also offers third-party content integration, including support for platforms like Himalaya and Koala FM. Additionally, users can access weather forecasts, food queries, and express delivery updates, and even shop via JD using voice commands.
Earlier this year, at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Baidu and Xiaoyu Technology announced a strategic partnership to launch "Xiaodu at Home," a dialogue-based AI operating system. This product combines elements of both smart speakers and video intercom robots. Users can play music, listen to the news, search for images, get information, set alarms, order takeout, chat, and control smart home devices—all through voice commands.
The concept of smart voice assistants began with smartphones, where they served as novel operational methods or functions. However, it wasn't until foreign tech giants began separating smart voice controls into standalone devices that the idea of smart speakers truly took shape. In November 2014, Amazon launched the Echo speaker, which is widely regarded as the pioneer in smart speakers. Prior to that, Samsung introduced the Hive smart speaker at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2015. Unfortunately, due to poor performance and software issues, the device was shelved and never gained traction.
This year, with the entry of tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, the popularity of smart speakers has surged. Globally, tech companies have been exploring this field for several years now. However, it was Amazon Echo's remarkable performance that transformed smart speakers from a niche concept into a mainstream smart hardware trend.
Echo's Success: A Model for Global Imitation
Echo isn’t Amazon’s first foray into hardware—it also developed the Fire Phone and Kindle e-reader. Among these three products, Echo stands out as the most successful. First, Echo offers more innovative value, inspiring global tech companies to follow suit. Second, its sales figures are impressive: it sold 1.7 million units in 2015 and 6 million in 2016, with expectations surpassing 10 million units in 2017. Most importantly, its future commercial potential is far greater than the other two products.
Echo’s success prompted top global companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, BAT, JD.com, Xiaomi, and Cheetah Mobile to follow suit. Compared to the sales figures of the other two products, Echo’s growth trajectory is particularly promising. This year, during Amazon Prime Day, Echo orders tripled compared to last year. This impressive result drove Amazon’s stock up $9 to break the $1,000 mark on July 12th.
Unlike the challenging path of VR, smart speakers are a necessity for any household, making them more accessible to consumers. Additionally, giants entering the smart speaker market aim to seize control of the smart home “control center,†and the affordable pricing is a key factor driving user interest. Echo’s prospects are encouraging, and other giants’ products also hold immense future potential.
Apple’s HomePod, priced at $349, is the outlier in terms of pricing. Echo’s lowest model starts at $90, Google Home is estimated at $129, JD.com’s latest model tops at 399 yuan, and Alibaba’s Tmall Genie X1 is priced at 499 yuan. Other newcomers won’t stray far from these prices. For the price of a regular speaker, users can enjoy similar sound quality and experience cutting-edge AI technologies. This is likely a major reason why smart speakers are gaining traction.
The smart speaker market is poised for significant growth, with Strategy Analytics predicting global shipments to reach 5.9 million units in 2016, growing tenfold to $55 billion by 2022. Driven by multiple factors, the voice recognition industry will see exponential growth, potentially surpassing VR as the hottest smart hardware category today.
Beyond Hardware Sales: Strategic Gains
Tech giants aren’t just interested in the profits from selling smart speakers—they’re looking to leverage these devices as the next “smartphone,†creating a new network paradigm through voice intelligence. One crucial aspect is争夺 traffic gateways. Whether it’s Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, BAT, or others, these giants dominate the technological landscape and are strategically positioned to control key traffic portals. As a new terminal connected via voice interaction, once users adopt it, smart speakers could become the third endpoint after PCs and mobile smart terminals. This vast potential is what drives major players to invest heavily.
Another motivation is extending existing businesses into the voice control domain. The rise of mobile internet, driven by smartphones, led to the decline of many tech giants from the PC era, with Yahoo being the most notable example. Today, active tech giants have secured their positions in the mobile internet space through various means. For instance, Amazon, Alibaba, and JD.com’s e-commerce platforms allow Echo users to shop via voice commands, giving Amazon a significant edge over Alibaba and JD.com. Additionally, Apple has the App Store and music streaming services, while Tencent benefits from the strong social networks of QQ and WeChat.
Ultimately, using “Voice + Speaker†as an entry point is the most seamless way to penetrate the smart home market. According to a report by Markets and Markets, the global smart home market is expected to reach $122 billion by 2022. Data from the Industry Research Institute shows that China’s smart home market reached 60.57 billion yuan in 2016, with a year-on-year growth rate of 50.15%. By 2018, it is projected to reach 139.6 billion yuan. Such a massive market presents immense opportunities—if smart speakers truly become the “control center†of smart homes, they could yield the greatest benefits for the entire sector.
Thus, whether it’s Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com, or Google, Apple, Samsung—beyond using smart speakers to expand original business traffic—they are also driven by the irresistible trend of taking over the smart home market. Following Echo’s success, Amazon launched Echo Show, adding a screen to enhance functionality. The additional screen caters to users’ familiarity with visual interfaces, gradually integrating smart home features with smart speakers until users fully adapt to voice-operated smart homes.
Therefore, we see that every smart speaker product is tied to smart homes. For example, Echo has three primary functions: voice control for alarms, music playback, weather inquiries, web searches, and news updates; connectivity via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi with Fire Phone or through browsers to link with iOS, Android, and PC devices for multimedia playback; and integration with smart home devices. Currently, Philips Hue, WeMo, Nest, Insteon, and Samsung SmartThings support voice control via Amazon Alexa.
Other smart speaker followers largely replicate Echo’s three-function structure. As the smart home ecosystem expands under the leadership of tech giants, smart speakers will increasingly work hand-in-hand with smart home devices. For users, purchasing traditional speakers at an affordable price while embracing AI is a win-win scenario. These giants’ continued efforts to integrate voice-controlled smart home features make smart speakers an easy choice, even for those unfamiliar with their full capabilities.
In 2017, smart speakers will undergo a major transformation, bringing greater intelligence to our lives and benefiting us all.
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