After Jawbone’s collapse, will domestic smart bracelets also be eliminated?
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A few years ago, many people would ask: What is the difference between AR and VR? What is AI? Today, a few years later, if you still don’t know what AR, VR, and AI are, everyone will say: You are out of touch. Although these technological terms are already household names, there is still a long way to go before these smart products can truly benefit the general public. Speaking of the widely used smart products, in addition to smart phones, the most well-known smart devices are smart bracelets. But I believe we can all feel that smart sports bracelets are not as popular as they were in previous years. In just a few years, the smart bracelet market has experienced an ups and downs from the initial launch to the popularity of products, and then to the increasingly depressed. Once upon a time, smart hardware companies were in great glory. The smart products born in the smart era attracted everyone's pursuit. According to the data of China Business Information Network, a total of 14 million high-tech wearable devices were sold in the global market in 2011. It is estimated that by 2017, nearly 70 million smart wearable devices will be sold worldwide. The rapid progress of smart technology has directly promoted smart wearable devices into the public eye. Smart bracelets are one of the wearable smart devices. Users can use smart bracelets to record real-time data such as exercise, sleep, and diet in daily life, and synchronize these data with mobile phones to play a role in guiding healthy life through data. Among the many smart wearable devices, smart bracelets have attracted many young consumers to buy with their small and exquisite appearance and novel and intelligent performance. In addition, in recent years, users born after 1990 have begun to pay attention to health preservation, and the popularization of healthy lifestyles has also made smart bracelets quickly popular. According to the in-depth research report on the forecast of market supply and demand prospects of China's smart bracelet industry from 2017 to 2022, the scale of the domestic smart bracelet market reached 4.5 billion yuan in 2015, and the scale of the smart bracelet market reached about 5.6 billion yuan in 2016. It is expected to reach 7 billion yuan in 2017, with an average growth rate of more than 15%. With broad "money" prospects and prospects, technology companies such as Jawbone, Xiaomi, and Huawei have flocked into the market, wanting to get a few pieces of cake from the blank market of smart bracelets. In 2011, Jawbone put aside its mature speaker and headphone product lines and transformed into making smart bracelets. Later, with the help of the craze for wearable devices, Jawbone received a lot of investment, and its valuation was as high as 3.2 billion US dollars in 2014. The real overnight popularity of domestic smart bracelets may be after the advent of Xiaomi smart bracelets. In 2014, Xiaomi smartphones quickly attracted the attention of domestic consumers with an ultra-low price of 79 yuan, and then the era of smart bracelets became popular in the smart wearable market. As of 2017, the shipment volume of Xiaomi bracelets has exceeded 30 million. Compared with Xiaomi's low price, Huawei's bracelets are priced at a medium level, and relying on mature technology accumulation and good market reputation, Huawei's bracelets have also performed very well in the smart wearable market. Huawei's smart wearable devices, which came from behind, have achieved a big explosion. According to IDC statistics, Huawei's smart wearable device sales in the third quarter of 2017 were 1.6 million units, compared with 600,000 units in the same period. The early technical accumulation and consumers' support for smart products, coupled with the pursuit of capital, ushered in a big explosion in smart bracelets. Everyone has a smart bracelet, which once became a standard of technology fashion. However, just a few years later, the smart bracelet market was hit by the bad news that Jawbone went bankrupt and Xiaomi's smart bracelet sales declined... Today, smart bracelets have become a thing of the past It is a pity that the good times of the smart bracelet industry did not last long. After a short period of popularity, it quickly declined and eventually disappeared in the memory trend of the vast sea of people. The ups and downs of smart bracelet manufacturers can be summarized by the phrase "I watched him build a tall building, I watched him entertain guests, and I watched his building collapse." 1. The decline of smart bracelets from the death of Jawbone Before the transformation to smart bracelets, Jawbone's three iconic products: Bluetooth headsets, speakers, and Up smart wristbands were deeply loved by consumers. After the transformation in 2011, Jawbone's production of smart products was mainly based on smart bracelets. In 2014, when smart bracelets exploded, Jawbone received large-scale financing, and its valuation once reached as high as 3.2 billion US dollars. However, the good times did not last long. After 18 years of survival and glory, Jawbone finally failed to withstand the financial difficulties and initiated liquidation procedures in July 2017. At that time, Jawbone developed a fashionable smart bracelet UP, which could count steps, check heart rate, and measure sleep status. The price was equivalent to RMB 900 to 1,200. During the period when Jawbone was the only one, the smart bracelet UP was a hot-selling item online. However, the manufacturing cost of smart bracelets is low, and the factory price of most smart bracelets is about three or four US dollars. Jawbone's price is too high, and people are willing to try new things. Once the novelty is over, people's good impression of smart bracelets will disappear. Later, after more smart bracelet manufacturers entered the market, Jawbone lost its exclusive advantage, and the disadvantages of its products began to gradually emerge. On the one hand, the low-priced smart bracelets with similar functions sold by domestic manufacturers have a great impact on Jawbone. For example, the Xiaomi wristband with functions such as counting steps and checking heart rate only costs 79 yuan, which instantly makes Jawbone lose its advantage. On the other hand, Jawbone smart wristband lacks innovation and highlights, and has no other eye-catching innovative functions except counting steps and so-called heart rate measurement. In fact, the core competitiveness of smart products lies in technology, service, and cost performance. Jawbone's death has its own factors: its first batch of products did not support Bluetooth, and there were quality problems such as easy crashes, and it made mistakes in technology and service. There are also external factors: Jawbone's bankruptcy reflects the increasingly fierce competition in the smart wearable industry. Of course, other smart wearable manufacturers are not doing well either. According to IDC statistics, Xiaomi's sales in the third quarter were about 3.6 million units, a 3.3% decrease from 3.7 million units in the same period last year. What's more, Intel closed its wearable business, Fitbit's share continued to decline, and many former wristband manufacturers began to change careers. 2. The decline of the smart bracelet market is attributed to three major factors. As time goes by, smart bracelets are no longer a new technology gadget in the eyes of the public. Like many new Internet products, smart bracelets have also begun to move from the economic hotspot to calmness. The public's eyes are sharp. Just as the outside world speculates about the death of Jawbone, the reasons why the smart bracelet industry is cold can be attributed to the following points: First, the low-price competition that burns money to run with is becoming increasingly fierce. In the domestic consumer market, the first factor that affects consumer purchases is often price rather than function and brand. Looking at various industries in China, we can see the current situation of the industry with low-price monopoly, serious homogeneity and uneven product quality. The same is true for the smart bracelet market. The brands with higher sales are the lowest-priced brands, and the sales of a number of high-end, high-priced international manufacturers' bracelets are not very ideal. When high-end large manufacturers went bankrupt one after another, low-end small factories encountered market shocks and were even more defeated. Second, product positioning affects future development. Looking at the development history of people's daily necessities, smart phones have replaced traditional mobile phones, and smart furniture has replaced traditional furniture, which shows that comfortable, convenient and practical smart products are people's constant pursuit. However, the hardware and software functions of smart bracelets are still subversive and extensible, and the short battery life, high cost and price are also restricting the development of smart bracelets. In other words, the technology and category development of smart bracelets are still imperfect, and they are not necessities of life. It is unlikely that they will change our lives in all aspects like smart phones and smart furniture. Third, smart bracelet products are highly homogenized. The smart bracelets currently launched are similar in function, and the main functions are nothing more than step counting, call reminders, monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, sleep quality, etc. Therefore, the fundamental reason for the decline in the popularity of smart bracelets is still the fundamental problems such as product homogeneity and useless functions. In general, whether it is external factors or internal factors, the decline of Jawbone, the leader of smart bracelets, is a pity. As the market declines, people also begin to speculate whether the next smart hardware company to go bankrupt will be domestic brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei. After all, the entire smart bracelet market is on the decline. Smart bracelet manufacturers are gathering strength and are expected to make a comeback. Although most smart bracelet manufacturers have entered a bottleneck period, the speed of technological updates and iterations has never slowed down. With the effective support of mobile Internet, cloud computing, and big data, technology products on the market have moved from the initial product functionality to the intelligent direction of solving user pain points. Using leading technology to bring users an intelligent and comfortable lifestyle is exactly what consumers pursue under the continuous upgrading of consumption. For enterprises, on the one hand, as one of the tools for people to achieve smart life, smart bracelets need to continue to innovate in order to grow faster. In fact, smart bracelet manufacturers have also begun to explore the intention to achieve product innovation. For example, Huawei bracelets with functions such as 50 meters waterproof and scientific sleep, and Samsung foldable curved screen smart bracelets are all manifestations of smart bracelet innovation. As a hot-selling product in China's journey of mobile smart wearable devices, smart bracelets represent the in-depth extension of leading technology in specific fields, and there is still a long way to go in the future. On the other hand, from the perspective of the entire industry, the smart bracelet industry is shifting from an extensive development model to a refined development. The current competitive landscape has accelerated the development of smart bracelets, which have innovative significance in both technology and practical applications. Therefore, in the future, smart bracelets need to target the needs of different groups of people, exert precise efforts, and even look beyond the fields of health, sports, fashion matching, etc. Just like the way of survival of the fittest in nature, the smart bracelet market is like a battlefield, and the smart wearable industry is facing a major reshuffle. Only when smart bracelets can steadily survive the trough can they be reborn and move forward to a higher technological field. Therefore, the current downturn in smart bracelets will not last long. With the rapid innovation of technology, small smart bracelets are likely to burst out with huge energy in the future...As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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