Smart speaker detonates the consumer market: Upstream MediaTek/Qualcomm/Spreads continues its bloody battle
OFweek smart home network news from Amazon in November 2014 launched the smart speaker Echo, more and more Internet giants began to join this hot market.
Followed by Alibaba's "Tmall Elf", Tencent vice president Liu Chi-Ping recently also publicly stated that Tencent's smart speaker products "ear" will be released around August, plus the previous "Jidong" and Baidu DuerOS wisdom chip Combining the actions of upstream partners in the field of smart speakers, the product roadmaps of major Internet companies in this area are gradually clear.
The rise in downstream industry enthusiasm has also given rise to the enthusiasm of upstream chip makers. Companies such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, Intel and Ziguang Zonui have all released smart speaker product lines this year. Some even believe that smart speakers will become the next e-consumer product after both mobile phone products.
“The consumer’s willingness to purchase smart speakers is increasing. With the infiltration of Amazon in other countries and the outbreak of the mainland market, there will be a very good development.†Deputy General Manager of U-Touch Technology and General Manager of Home Entertainment Products Group In an interview with reporters, if you look at the annual growth rate, it is expected that the volume of smart speakers in the industry this year will be three times that of last year.
A spokesperson for Ziguang Zengru revealed to reporters that the smart speaker products that carry the company’s chips have been shipped on a large scale, mainly smart and Bluetooth speakers within 300 yuan.
Market enters an outbreak
Following the mobile phone, smart speakers were initially considered to be another "killer" product that detonated the consumer market.
The consulting company, Strategy Analytics, predicts that the global shipment of smart speakers in 2016 will be 5.9 million units, which will increase 10 times in 2022 and the market value will reach US$5.5 billion. In the fourth quarter of last year, shipments of smart speakers increased nearly 600% year-on-year to 4.2 million units.
In fact, giants such as Amazon have begun to taste the sweetness in this area.
From the time of its official release in November 2014 to more than two years now, Amazon Echo Smart Speaker has become one of the hottest smart home products on the market. People can use Echo to control their home appliances, purchase goods, and inquire through voice. According to survey data from research firm eMarketer, in the United States, about 36 million users use voice-operated speakers once a month, and this number is still expanding.
As the market became clear, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tencent, and Ali also started to enter the market, which also led to a significant increase in chip shipments of chip manufacturers in the field of smart speakers.
"Including intelligent voice assistant equipment, Internet of Things, power management and ASIC, we expect that revenue from growth products will exceed 30% in the next 1-2 years." After this year's MediaTek 2017 shareholder meeting, Chairman Cai Mingjie said in an interview with the media. At present, MediaTek is one of the main chip makers of the Amazon smart speaker Echo, occupying more than half of the shipment share.
Tourists Jie told reporters that MediaTek is expected to increase its share of Amazon at the end of this year, and is also cooperating with several domestic Internet giants in the field of smart speakers, as the most convenient human-machine interface, he believes that the market will be The second half of this year ushered in an outbreak. "In terms of annual growth rate, the growth rate of the smart speaker industry this year is at least three times more than last year."
Of course, MediaTek's old rivals Qualcomm, Spreadtrum, and Intel are also in the game.
At a developer conference last month, Qualcomm launched the "Smart Audio Platform." In addition to the chip itself, this new platform also provides developers with more development tools to help developers create smart audio faster, similar to Amazon's Echo and other products. Both new chips will provide support for two voice assistants, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa; they can also support voice recognition, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Prior to this, at a technology development conference in Amazon, Intel announced high-profile development of a smart speaker based on the Amazon Voice Assistant called "Smart Home Hub."
Ziguang’s market is even faster, and its partners have already launched smart sounders at prices below 300 yuan. "At present, there are about dozens of our speaker customers, mainly smart and Bluetooth speakers within 300 yuan, the price of the chip is very competitive." Spreadtrum spokesman told reporters.
AI entrance?
"Intelligent speaker, hidden is the layout of various chip manufacturers in the field of smart artificial." Wang Yanhui, secretary of the Mobile Alliance, told reporters.
In fact, although it is called "smart speaker", Amazon's Echo function far beyond a speaker, it is more like a tool for home users to use voice to access the Internet, such as on-demand songs, online shopping, or to understand Weather forecasts can also be used to control smart home devices, such as opening curtains, setting the temperature of the refrigerator, warming the water heater in advance, etc.
In other words, the smart speaker is more like a prototype of a “home robot,†and it provides better service and better decisions through historical data and current data. Wang Yanhui told reporters that this kind of manipulation through voice is not only limited to homes, but also cars, shopping malls, etc., and chip makers are entering because they see a bigger market.
Take Intel as an example. Although Intel has been extending its artificial intelligence technology to acquire Nervana, a leading provider of deep learning and neural network chips and software, in recent years, Intel has not yet had a product comparable to the PC era in terms of consumer products. It can be "endorsement." Therefore, many people in the industry believe that the cooperation with Amazon is not so much that Intel wants to share the smart speaker market. It is better to say that it has taken a fancy to the smart home products and other larger artificial intelligence chip markets.
At the cooperation summit with Baidu, the chief scientist of Ziguang Zonui and Wei Dike, CEO of RDA Microelectronics, were even more blunt. Artificial intelligence is essentially the application of voice computing. The chip companies can provide various interfaces, communications, and low-level chips. In order to achieve the role of artificial intelligence portal. In the future, the power of domestically produced chips on smart voice will focus on three points: lower power consumption, smaller size, and more powerful functions. Rui Dike plans to work together with Baidu and ARM to release a chip every year.
In the opinion of the visitors, after the deep learning was proposed, the learning of the AI ​​became easier, and the implementation of the hardware architecture also achieved a major breakthrough. This is why Amazon began to have such products as Echo. At the same time, he believes that smart speakers will become the future "service entrance." "At present, smart speakers are not just voice conversations. What people value more is the service brought by this product in the future, or what kind of service will be integrated." The visitor Jiejie told reporters.
In any case, whether it is smart speakers or artificial intelligence, it is certain that, following the mobile phone, another round of new opportunities for chip manufacturers is coming. Wang Yanhui told reporters that voice is becoming a central user interface, which will stimulate the recovery of the upstream industry chain including the chip industry.
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