China's Internet giants compete for dominance intelligent speaker, because their goal is not yet 500 million Internet users
Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li made a speech at Baidu World Technology Conference held in Beijing. The company in China's leading intelligent speaker package, the first quarter of this year, shipments of 330 million units.
For Chinese enterprises, this is very risky, because they saw the shift from computers and smartphones text input method may enter a voice command huge new group of users.
According to a report released in February, at the end of last year 562 million Chinese people still connect to the Internet, more than 87% said lack of computer skills and the inability to use pinyin as the main reason to block their access to the Internet. China Internet Network Information Center.
AI-driven voice input is also seen as agents of a number of new devices that constitute the Internet of Things (IOT), the market opportunity has attracted dozens of Chinese start-ups, such as Google support Mobvoi, and is headquartered in Hangzhou will Tencent and Rokid Temasek and other heavyweight shares as one of its investors.
According to Canalys data, China's smart speaker shipments up 500% to 10.6 million units in the first quarter, for the first time surpassed the US as 51% of the world's largest market share. China is the world's top five vendors in the smart speaker three - Baidu, Alibaba (South China Morning Post's parent company) and millet - Although the United States of Amazon and Google still occupy the top two.
Nicole Peng, vice president of mobile Canalys said in a statement: "China's rapid growth is largely due to a lot of money quickly occupy the dominant supplier-driven." "This strategy was Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent and other popular Internet service providers, they are accustomed to spending billions of dollars to buy traffic and know how to quickly reach key installed base. "
In addition to online content and services as the next major portal, based on artificial intelligence intelligent speaker also has provided valuable data (such as speech patterns and consumer preferences) advantage, while ensuring that users remain in the company's service ecosystem.
"Like the era of smart phones not just to call a mobile device - more information search, online shopping and watching videos - Intelligent speaker is also the same trend occurs, in which a third party [service internal services are becoming the main function," activities Baidu vice president and general manager of intelligent life Jing Kun Group released three models of intelligent speaker said earlier this month.
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though a huge ecosystem services provides a good starting point for the leading players, but to strengthen the product to attract a large number of users are behind the country's demand for intelligent speaker market price war a major reason Antonio Wang, vice president and vice president. IDC study Chinese client systems.
In last year's online sales activities in a single day, Alibaba cheapest smart speaker models priced as low as 99 yuan (US $ 14.40). Not to be outdone, Baidu provides 89 yuan shortly after the one-time offer. In contrast, the basic version of Amazon Echo Echo Dot series with Alexa voice assistant is priced at $ 25.
With the development of the market, including more than 400 million households, including price competition will continue in the short term. "It is foreseeable that there is a one in four families will have at least one intelligent home speaker, and some even have two or three," he said. 'This year the market will explode'.
Intelligent speaker will also accelerate the development of things, because the AI-driven technology enables the machine to better understand human speech, which will allow seamless interaction between home, car or any portable device, beyond today's smartphones.
General Manager Ali Baba Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Miffy · Chen said: "The more interaction between man and machine, the smarter they are, the more we benefit." "With these artificial voice assistant behind the continued rapid development, they will become an important part "of our daily lives.
Last month, Alibaba announced a partnership with car giant Audi, Renault and Honda, will integrate its in-vehicle voice command system to a new connectivity model car manufacturers developing.
Since its debut in mid-2017, Alibaba's Tmall intelligent assistant wizard has been installed in more than 600 brands of home appliances, used in homes, cars, hotels and nursing homes and other applications, to provide information and entertainment services ecosystem, including news, books to read and food distribution. shopping.
"Intelligent hardware like speakers but companies can use and access the user's data means," King IDC said, "[they] as a gateway, the user will remain in the ecosystem created by the Internet giant."
With the competition for competitors to build "walled garden" intelligent leadership speaker market has cropped up every company in the provision of various services separately from food distribution book, movie ticket and hotel to online shopping, navigation and video stream.