Home appliance giants are focusing on smart home: seizing a market worth hundreds of billions

Apple (647.35, 2.53, 0.39%), a giant in today's Internet era , said at its recent developer conference that in 20 years, smart homes will change our lifestyles, and the smart home "platform" that Apple is committed to building will also have more home appliance manufacturers supporting its applications.

However, at this stage, smart products are still mainly based on basic "control" functions. Industry insiders suggest that manufacturers should develop more derivative value-added services based on user needs.

Last year, the smart home appliance industry exceeded 100 billion yuan

2014 may be an important transformation period for Chinese home appliance enterprises. More home appliance enterprises have begun to move closer to the Internet and focus on the layout of the smart home industry. For example, Midea and Alibaba have cooperated to create smart home platform products; Changhong and Meiling have launched CHIQ refrigerators, and Haier has released the smart home platform U+ smart life operating system. While enterprises are launching the smart industry market with increasing momentum, they are also eager to speed up the industry chain as soon as possible.

Liu Buchen, an economic and industrial observer, believes that despite the difficulties in building a smart ecosystem, Apple's platform construction is still of epoch-making significance, especially since it has brought together the strengths of Haier, Texas Instruments (47.4, 0.55, 1.17%), Philips, Cree, and many other manufacturers. He believes that for a long time, co-opetition strategies will outweigh competitive relationships.

Zuo Yanque, general manager of brand at research company China Market Research, also believes that with Apple's development and application of the smart home platform, the smart home industry will hopefully enter a substantive stage. With the joint efforts of the entire smart industry chain, it will also inevitably enter a rapid development channel and achieve leapfrog development.

Statistics show that there are more than 100 million potential smart home customers in China. By 2015, the output value of smart homes will reach 124 billion yuan. According to reports, the output value of smart home appliances in China reached 100 billion yuan in 2013 and is expected to reach 1 trillion yuan by 2020.

In addition, the industry policy level also actively supports the development of smart home appliances. The "12th Five-Year Plan for the Development of China's Home Appliance Industry" released in 2011 proposed energy saving, environmental protection, and intelligence as the direction of technical development. The "General Principles of Intelligent Technology for Smart Home Appliances" released in 2012 further proposed to regulate the smart home appliance market and guide the development direction of smart home appliances.

Software development is still weak

However, a report by market research company Aowei Consulting believes that the sales scale of smart home appliances in China has initially started, but is still in the production capacity introduction stage. Standard smart home appliances should include several major functions such as remote control, home appliance network upgrades, remote maintenance and anti-theft alarms, but the current domestic products are far from covering all of the above elements in terms of application, and are still relatively rigid in product design and function implantation.

The concept of smart home is also popular but not profitable. The proliferation of smart peripheral products cannot hide the lack of core technology. Shenyin Wanguo Securities pointed out that most smart products are still based on basic "control" functions, with weak software development capabilities and lack of development of derivative value-added services for users' "pain points". Most smart home appliances are priced too high and difficult to popularize. He suggested that manufacturers change the past thinking that selling products is the end of the value chain, and pay attention to iteration and interaction.

Zuo Yanque believes that smart home appliances should use Internet thinking not only in product design but also in marketing channels, and can even learn from the "free" marketing ideas of Internet companies for promotion.

"The development direction of intelligence is the general trend, and consumers are more receptive to smart products. However, how to make products easier to use, highlight consumer benefits, and make product integration and development more efficient and faster through intelligence are all areas where smart manufacturers need to further meet challenges," said Liu Buchen.

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.