Alibaba, Baidu, Xiaomi, and JD.com and Netease's smart speaker teams disbanded one after another
As one of the artificial intelligence landing products, the smart speaker has always been loved and sought after by everyone. But just recently, industry insiders broke the news that the Linglong technology team of Jingdong Dingdong smart speakers is about to cool down, and CEO Wei Qiang also left in a low-key manner last week. According to the headhunter, the resumes of product directors and higher-level employees of Linglong Technology have been seen one after another, and these people are all rushing to apply for a job. Coincidentally, recently, AI Ruijian has also continuously heard from industry insiders that most of the NetEase smart speaker team has been disbanded, and only a very small part has been merged into the NetEase Cloud Music team. In contrast, the smart speaker teams of other competitors are thriving and in full swing, and Alibaba, Baidu, and Xiaomi's smart speaker sales hit a new high. According to official data, on the day of the Double 11 promotion, the champion of the consumer electronics industry for the first time used smart speakers instead of traditional consumer electronics products that were dominated by mobile phones in the past. Tmall Genie sold more than 1 million units, and Xiaodu Jiajia also won the first place in both sales and sales of smart speakers with a screen. The team disbanded and the sales hit a new high. Why did the completely different endings appear in front of everyone at the same time? 1. Sales continued to decline, and Linglong Technology was released from the military In August 2015, JD.com took the lead in launching the Dingdong smart speaker. As the first person in China to eat crabs in the category of smart speakers, Jingdong's plan is not too early, and even in the early stage of the market, with its channel advantages, it once occupied more than 70% of the domestic market share. According to previous data, in 2016, domestic smart speakers mainly include Jingdong Dingdong, JBL and Philips. Among them, Dingdong speakers entered the market early and their products were relatively abundant, and the annual market share reached 65%. The proportion of Philips and JBL 14% and 20% respectively. In 2017, Xiaomi also officially entered the smart speaker market, and immediately seized 32% of the market share. The market share of JD’s smart speakers fell to 38%. In August 2018, there were 450,000 smart speakers sold in China that month, of which Tmall Genie accounted for the most, accounting for 36%, followed by Xiaomi Xiaoai with 34%, and Baidu Xiaodu with an ultra-low price of 89 yuan Quickly cut in, sales surpassed JD Dingdong by 16% and the latter by 11%. As the market share of smart speakers continues to be squeezed by Internet giants, JD.com and iFLYTEK, a joint venture subsidiary of Linglong Technology, which launched the behind-the-scenes team of JD Dingdong smart speakers, are also in an embarrassing situation. In addition, with the merger of Linglong Technology and Alpha platform into the JD IoT business unit in June this year, Zhou Jiong, the original general manager of the Jingdong Intelligence Department, became the general manager of the IoT business unit. Instead, the CEO of Linglong Technology has to turn to the original equal. Zhou Jiong reported, and the Dingdong smart speakers in the market have been marginalized again and again, and changes are inevitable. More and more people choose to resign from Linglong Technology and turn to interviews and search for new jobs. AI Ruijian has heard more than one case. As a result, there have been rumors that the team of Linglong Technology has been continuously disbanded, the powers of CEO Wei Qiang have been released repeatedly, and more people have chosen to leave, so that Wei Qiang left in a low-key manner last week. Looking at the entire sales curve of Dingdong smart speakers, it is not difficult to see that in the stage of vigorous subsidies, the sales of Jingdong Dingdong smart speakers are still among the best. It's just that with the entry of more powerful subsidies such as Alibaba and Baidu into the market, the subsidies for the entire Dingdong smart speaker have not become stronger when they are strong, releasing more potential energy and occupying more market share, so there is no counterattack under the strong enemy. It is also predictable that Zhili's Linglong Technology ended up today. Some employees of JD.com even broke the news that although JD.com was the first to release speakers, the group did not pay attention to it in the early stage, and the publicity was not good. News about Dingdong smart speakers. 2. The crowdfunding that missed the opportunity did not save the fate of the NetEase team This year, the smart speaker market has been quiet for a while. Many people think that when smart speakers have entered a bottleneck period, NetEase has entered the game at this time. In mid-to-late July, NetEase's new smart speaker officially launched crowdfunding on JD Finance. The crowdfunding price was 799 yuan, and the sale price would be as high as 1,399 yuan. It is reported that this speaker built by NetEase is more expensive than Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi, and its language interaction function is similar to other smart speakers. many. According to AI Ruijian, this Netease smart speaker is a product made by the artificial intelligence department of Netease Research Institute. At its peak, the team of this department has about 300 people, distributed in artificial intelligence voice, image and other directions. The purpose is to use the resources of NetEase Cloud Music to make a smart speaker. However, the user experience of the product was unsatisfactory, and it was not in time for the 618 listing. In addition, the market environment was not very good at the time of crowdfunding. NetEase invested a huge cost, but did not receive the corresponding income, so that most of the smart speaker team They were all laid off, and only a few were merged into the NetEase Cloud Music team. As for some of the reasons why it was not listed, industry insiders told AI Ruijian that the reason is that the Netease smart speaker team's understanding and grasp of hardware products, markets, and sales channels is a little short, and they blindly polish the product details and miss it. Excellent time to market. In addition, NetEase Cloud Music, which NetEase is proud of, has incomplete copyrights and cannot support a complete smart speaker product at all. This coincides with the news that AI Ruijian learned from the industry headhunter: Since last month, the employees of NetEase's smart speaker team have basically been divided and laid off. 3. The sales volume of Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi smart speakers holding high In the first half of 2018, China's smart speaker market continued to boom. In the second quarter of this year, Alibaba, Baidu, Xiaomi and other giants launched low-cost Mini products, and the price war continued to escalate. Smart speakers also ushered in a second wave of explosive growth. It is estimated that in 2018, the retail sales of China's smart speaker online market will reach 9 million units. This year's Double Eleven, the smart speaker market is even more popular. According to official data, on the day of the recent Double 11 promotion, the champion of the consumer electronics industry was the first to use smart speakers instead of traditional consumer electronics products that were mainly mobile phones in the past. With more than half a month before Double Eleven, Ali's Tmall Genie took the lead in launching a price reduction plan. The smart three-piece set costs only 89 yuan, and the purchase price alone is only 69 yuan. Such a gimmick has attracted many people. attention, the final pre-order is 1 million units. Baidu also immediately started a "tear sale". Baidu's Xiaodu smart speaker dropped directly from 249 yuan to 69 yuan, and the Xiaodu home with a screen dropped from 1,300 yuan to 299 yuan. Subsequently, Xiaodu's full range of smart speaker products ranked first in the smart speaker category on the three major online shopping platforms including JD.com, Gome, and Pinduoduo during the Double Eleven. A double champion. Xiaomi also recently announced that it has built the world's largest IoT consumer Internet of Things, connecting 115 million smart devices. In addition, it is worth mentioning that according to the report on China's smart speaker market in the third quarter of 2018 recently released by Canalys, a global authoritative market research organization, domestic smart speakers have successfully entered the era of the Three Kingdoms. Shipments ranked first; Xiaomi Xiaoai sold 1.9 million units, ranking second; Baidu ranked third with 1 million units shipped. This is also in line with the information that AI Ruijian has learned from various employees: Alibaba, Baidu, and Xiaomi are killed in the Three Kingdoms. Among them, Baidu has also become the largest dark horse in Q3, and its share has increased from 1% in Q2 in 2018 to 8% in Q3 in 2018. It is expected that this year, China will become the second largest market for smart speakers after the United States, and the overall smart speaker shipments will also increase by 12 times. Epilogue At present, it belongs to the highlight moment of smart speakers, and the development of each company is also different. However, the reasons behind the different development of each company are worth pondering. Why are the smart speakers of JD.com and NetEase so cool? On the one hand, the two have not invested too much energy and cost in the category of smart speakers. Although the price subsidy war will cause the company to lose too much blood temporarily, and it is not the ultimate goal and state, we can clearly see that the subsidy has an absolute influence on the initial entry of the company, especially when each company is doing different series At the time of the product, the role of the low-price strategy should not be underestimated; On the other hand, if the enterprise smart speaker entry does not choose a low-price strategy, then it must also choose the right time. For example, the just-concluded Double Eleven is a typical entry time. Alibaba, Baidu, and even Huawei have chosen to launch new products before Double Eleven and reduce prices in order to sprint the sales of smart speakers, and the effect is also very obvious; In addition, the most important thing is the product experience of smart speakers. If the above two are not dominant, then you must work hard on the product experience and make product differentiation features. For example, Huawei's smart call function and Xiaodu's home screen have attracted consumers' hearts to a certain extent. Of course, there may be smart speaker products that continue to enter the game next, hoping to withstand the fierce smart speaker product offensive of Alibaba, Baidu, and Xiaomi. Cable Box,Junction Boxes,Cable Connection Box,Waterproof Cable Box Jiangmen Krealux Electrical Appliances Co.,Ltd. , https://www.krealux-online.com