Recently, smart home has become the “main battlefield” of many enterprises.
Following Huawei’s launch of a new generation of Huawei’s whole house intelligent solutions and many intelligent products in mid March, cloud meter technology (viot. US) also launched the “one-stop whole house intelligent” solution at the subsequent press conference.
On the other hand, the whole house smart brand Shenzhen euribo Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “euribo”) and Shenzhen LVMI Lianchuang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “LVMI Lianchuang”) have recently completed a financing of 1 billion yuan and obtained capital assistance.
Behind the active investment of huge capital and the listing of enterprises, it is implicit that smart home is running towards the market scale of 800 billion yuan.
However, how attractive are the emerging smart home products to consumers? What are the user pain points of smart home to be solved? The reporter of China business daily learned some feedback from practitioners in the field interview.
capital grabs the “cake”
In recent years, the smart home market has ushered in a “growth period”. Referring to the data calculated by EU billion think tank based on statista data, the market scale of China’s smart home industry will be about 435.4 billion yuan in 2020 and is expected to exceed 800 billion yuan in 2025.
In terms of shipments, data released by International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that in 2021, China’s smart home device Market shipped more than 220 million units, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%. In the process of continuous optimization, the market will usher in new development opportunities. It is expected that the shipment volume of China’s smart home equipment market will exceed 260 million units in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 17.1%.
The explosive potential and shipment growth in the smart home market have affected the flow of capital. The reporter noted that at the beginning of 2022, orebo announced the formal completion of a new round of financing, with a total investment of 1 billion yuan.
Euribo revealed that the funds raised in this round of financing will be used for smart home product and system innovation; Investment in the research and development of the whole house intelligent operating system and aiot artificial intelligence technology, as well as the construction of smart home ecology and retail platform.
Coincidentally, LVMI Lianchuang also completed round C financing of 1 billion yuan by the end of 2021. LVMI Lianchuang said that this round of financing will focus on product R & D and innovation, the construction and implementation of global business channels, brand construction and increasing the introduction of talents.
On the one hand, billions of yuan of funds have poured into brands focusing on whole house intelligence, such as euribo and LVMI Lianchuang. On the other hand, the subdivided categories of smart home devices are also widely favored by capital, incubating a number of enterprises that have rushed to the A-share market.
In the category of smart locks, Shenzhen kaidishi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “kaidishi”) completed round C financing of 600 million yuan in March this year. This is also the support of investors after Cadiz obtained nearly US $100 million round B strategic financing led by Lanxin Asia Investment Group and followed by Tongchuang Weiye and Qianhai mutual Hing in March 2021.
In addition, a number of smart home enterprises have submitted prospectuses. According to the reporter’s combing, Hangzhou fluorite Network Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “fluorite network”), which is mainly engaged in smart home cameras and other products, plans to be listed on the science and innovation board. Qingdao Youwu Smart Home Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Youwu smart”) and Meizhi Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Meizhi photoelectric”) are in the process of gem IPO.
It is worth noting that the above three enterprises that have rushed to the A-share market have strong “backing”. Among them, fluorite network is split and listed by Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.Ltd(002415) ( Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.Ltd(002415) . SZ), Meizhi optoelectronics is split and listed by Midea Group Co.Ltd(000333) ( Midea Group Co.Ltd(000333) . SZ), and the actual controller of home intelligence is Haier Group. This phenomenon also reflects the industry giants’ early layout of the smart home market and is reaping “fruits”.
uneven development of sub categories
In terms of horizontal comparison, there are mainly several kinds of “contestants” with “sense of existence” in the smart home market at this stage: one is technology enterprises such as Xiaomi ecological chain and Huawei smart home; One is Midea Group Co.Ltd(000333) , Haier Smart Home Co.Ltd(600690) and other home appliance giants, as well as enterprises in the field of smart home such as orebo, LVMI Lianchuang and kaidishi.
In this regard, Zhao Meimei, assistant president and general manager of Research Department of AVC, analyzed the characteristics of different “contestants” to reporters. Among them, home appliance enterprises have hardware manufacturing advantages and channel advantages, and can also expand categories horizontally, create intelligent scenes and enhance competitiveness.
“Platform service-oriented Internet enterprises are open-ended enterprises. With strong technical strength and cloud service ability, they provide hardware enterprises with trading platform, industrial chain integration, cloud platform, openness, big data services and other support, and have strong technical ability.” Zhao Meimei further pointed out.
As different types of enterprises join the scuffle, what is the response of end consumers? The reporter recently visited a number of smart home experience stores in Shenzhen. According to a number of salespeople, the living room and bedroom are the spaces that consumers pay more attention to, while smart lamps, smart curtains and control panels buy more products for consumers.
Referring to the data released by cshia research in 2020, among smart home products, home security, smart lighting, smart appliances and smart audio and video occupy the top market share. Combined with the introduction of many terminal salespeople, we can understand that the development of smart home products is uneven at this stage, and consumers’ acceptance of some smart home products needs to be improved.
On the one hand, it is the channel of offline sales for C-end consumers; On the other hand, smart home also expands to b-end markets such as real estate fine decoration. The reporter noted that Ou Ruibo introduced on the official website that the enterprise is the exclusive strategic procurement supplier of smart home for many top 100 real estate groups, and LVMI Lianchuang also disclosed the customer cases of the enterprise in the real estate industry, hotel industry and office industry on the official website.
Wang Feng (a pseudonym), who is mainly engaged in engineering business such as hotels and villas, told reporters, “we make a smart home for standard suites in the hotel. The price is about 5000 yuan to 6000 yuan, including basic lighting control, voice control of TV, air conditioning and other household appliances. Of course, the price should also be determined according to the budget of the hotel. There are also cases where each room is 2000 yuan to 3000 yuan or more than 10000 yuan.”
Although various enterprises “rush” in the field of smart home from multiple channels, some pain points still affect the user experience at this stage.
Smart home service provider Li Lang (pseudonym) told reporters that ZigBee is a commonly used connection technology in the smart home industry, but each brand has different stability when connecting. Li Lang explained with practical examples that, for example, the smart panel of smart home connects to the network through WiFi. “If WiFi is unstable, ZigBee connection between smart appliances will be affected, and there may be delay and disconnection.”
IResearch consulting also recently mentioned the pain points of intelligent users in the whole house. On the one hand, users are affected by asymmetric information and scattered purchase channels in the early selection stage, so the price is opaque and the connection of multi brand single products is difficult to solve; On the other hand, in the installation process, there is a phenomenon that the installation period is uncertain due to the shortage of professional installation talents of some manufacturers. In the actual use process, due to the lack of standardized after-sales service team of some manufacturers, the adverse phenomena of arbitrary charges, insufficient service and agents kicking the ball emerge one after another, affecting the user experience.
