The Present And Future Of Consumer IoT
The core of the development of the consumer Internet of Things is to improve user experience, cultivate usage habits, enhance user stickiness, and then obtain more valuable user data and realize data value-added.
From 2000 to 2010, the concept of the Internet of Things continued to develop, and the emerging industry of the Internet of Things attracted worldwide attention. In the past 10 years, the Internet of Things industry has developed rapidly, and infrastructure construction and underlying technologies are constantly improving: core components such as sensors and chips are developing in the direction of low cost, low power consumption, high performance, and intelligence; 5G, Wi- Fi6, LPWAN (low-power wide-area network) and other network communication technologies have made breakthroughs to increase network transmission rate, expand connection capacity, and reduce power consumption and delay; innovative development of underlying core technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
The current stage of consumer Internet of Things: mainly to increase the number of device connections
With the enrichment of smart hardware categories and IoT applications, the Internet of Things has penetrated into diversified consumption scenarios. The awareness of the so-called smart life concept among consumers continues to increase, and the consumer Internet of Things market has a huge space.
According to data released by GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association), from 2010 to 2019, the compound annual growth rate of the number of the global Internet of Things devices reached 22%. In 2019, the number of device connections reached 12 billion, of which direct-to-consumer devices The number of connections is 4.4 billion (2 billion for smart homes, 1.2 billion for consumer electronics, 300 million for wearable devices, 300 million for smart cars, and 600 million for other consumer products). Comprehensive analysis of the layout of industry players, smart homes, and wearable devices are the current development focus of consumer IoT.
Smart home: In 2014, Google acquired Nest for US$3.2 billion, taking an important step in the deployment of the Internet of Things (smart home), which also promoted the development of the global smart home industry. In March of the same year, Haier released the U+ smart life platform, the release of Midea For the M-Smart smart home strategy, Samsung and LG also launched their respective smart home platforms at CES. From 2017 to 2019, global shipments of smart speakers continued to grow and became a hot item. The expansion of smart hardware and application services around smart speakers and virtual voice assistants has also become an important direction for corporate development. Traditional home appliance companies, Internet companies, and telecom operators Companies with different roles have entered the venue one after another, focusing on business expansion through cross-industry cooperation and an open ecosystem.
Wearable devices: With the iteration of key technologies such as sensors, AI, and AR, wearable devices gradually integrate richer functions and have great potential for development. In 2019, global wearable device shipments reached 336.5 million units, an increase of 89% from 178 million units in 2018. Driven by popular products such as Apple Watch and Xiaomi bracelets, wearable devices can better integrate biological information collection, health detection, data transmission, and other functions to meet the needs of consumers for a healthy life and at the same time contribute to the development of sports and health scenarios. provide support.
In addition, products and applications related to more aspects of smart life, such as the sharing economy (shared power banks, shared bicycles, etc.), personal asset tracking, smart entertainment, smart elderly care, etc., are emerging in an endless stream, gradually affecting consumers.
However, the consumer Internet of Things industry is still in the early stages of exploration and accumulation. The concepts of smart life and the Internet of Everything are attractive. The core of consumer business is still to grasp user needs and improve user experience. C-end users have curiosity and enthusiasm for early adopters of innovative technologies such as AI and IoT and have great expectations. However, if the corresponding products do not meet the user's expectations, the subsequent cultivation of user habits will be hindered. Taking smart homes as an example, the existing natural language processing capabilities of smart speakers are still unsatisfactory. The human-computer interaction of a single product is not natural and smooth, and it is more difficult to form a linkage with other smart home appliances as a hub; Sun, deputy general manager of Shanghai Quectel Communications Yanming said that the current activation rate of smart home appliances is not high, because, for ordinary consumers, a more comfortable experience can be brought about by a senseless, stable, and foolish connection; the market is fragmented, lacks unified standards, and user privacy and security problems such as difficulty in guaranteeing have also affected the user experience.
Consumer Internet of Things: Upgrade from smart hardware sales to data services
Consumer-oriented IoT business mainly includes terminal equipment sales, platform and equipment connection services, application and solution services, etc.
Companies with hardware development and production capabilities have a better development path. In the early stage of development, companies focus on key areas to develop core products of their own brands and gain users and revenue through smart hardware sales. With the enrichment of smart hardware categories, the increase in sales, and the increase in the number of connected devices, the demand for connection and interaction between devices is also increasing. Building a platform that provides device connection and management functions is the foundation to support the continued expansion of consumer IoT business.
In order to enhance user stickiness, enterprises further develop consumer services, build development platforms, provide developers with development tools and services, and expand consumer-oriented applications and content services. Intelligent hardware and application services form a synergy, converge traffic, accumulate user data, and finally realize data value mining.
Expansion of connections, platform construction, and data monetization are common paths for the development of the consumer Internet of Things business. At present, consumer Internet of Things is in the stage where the number of device connections continues to increase, and the initial construction of connection management platforms and development service platforms (more mature companies). Increasing the sales of smart hardware is not the ultimate goal. Obtaining user data, mining the value behind the data, and realizing data realization are important directions for the future development of the Internet of Things business.
The Internet of Things industry report "Research on the Internet of Things Business Layout of Giant Enterprises", the report selects Alibaba, Amazon, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Apple as the research objects, in-depth analysis and horizontal comparison of their Internet of Things business development path, strategic planning, technical capabilities, and key points The products and core advantages summarize the internal development logic of enterprises with different roles.