
In view of the trend that voice dialogue system is increasingly becoming the control center of the Internet of Things, Du Haitao, general manager of products and operations of Alibaba’s artificial intelligence laboratory, told the First Financial Reporter that the future control center of smart homes may not necessarily be smart speakers, and Ali is also trying other hardware products, but at present, speakers are the most suitable transitional products, thus connecting more intelligent hardware products.
Recently, Ali Innovation Business Unit announced its layout in the AIoT field, saying that Tmall Elf mainly faces the consumer market and consumer IoT industry, and plays a core role in connection and empowerment. At present, it has cooperated with more than 900 intelligent hardware and home appliance manufacturers to export voice interaction and intelligent connection capabilities, so as to access the ecology of Tmall Elf.
Du Haitao said, "Challenge the boss."
Internet of things trend
In the final analysis, the essence of IoT ecological layout is to build an Internet of Things system to realize the interconnection of everything and data exchange. Gao Haiying, vice president of SKG domestic sales company, said when talking about cooperation with Tmall Elf, "Whether an Internet of Things is valuable depends on whether it can obtain and use data, and its core is ‘ Sensor ’ Deployment ","Only when it is embedded in every corner of society can the platform have powerful data capabilities, help enterprises to innovate quickly and seize market opportunities. "
Zhang Tao, general manager of Rong Tai Brand Operation Center, said that with the development and popularization of Internet of Things technology, the focus of the industry has expanded from the cloud to the edge, and 5G, artificial intelligence and edge computing have become the key driving forces in the development of Internet of Things technology in recent two years. IoT platform is a link between the preceding and the following in the industrial chain of Internet of Things.
It has become an industry consensus that the Internet of Things will become the general direction of smart home upgrading and transformation. Gao Haiying, vice president of SKG domestic sales company, said that when choosing the IoT platform, he hoped that the platform could know more users’ needs in time and learn more user scenarios and data to pave the way for its own intelligent transformation and upgrading, mainly focusing on whether the platform has strong data capabilities, strong adaptability, pricing model and whether the IoT platform is stable and safe enough.
There are many modes of cooperation between Tmall Elf and manufacturers. One is brand joint customization, where both parties define goods and prices together and then face the market together. Another Ali output technology allows goods to be connected to the Tmall Elf and become a smart device that can be controlled by voice.
At present, there is another model in the industry — — To build an ecological chain and build an ecological chain brand by investing in shares, the cooperative manufacturers in the ecological chain do not have their own brands. However, Ali said that this approach is not in line with Alibaba’s business philosophy.
From the manufacturer’s point of view, in response to the problem of "standing in line", Zhang Tao said that the Rong Tai brand only opened an official flagship store in Tmall, while the Rong Tai sub-brand cooperated with Xiaomi. "Ali and Xiaomi have different ecological models and each has its own advantages. When choosing the IoT platform, we will proceed from our own business strategic positioning and needs."
Giant layout IoT
The head of the IoT layout under the trend of the Internet of Things is Xiaomi. The just-released third-quarter financial report data of Xiaomi Group shows that during the reporting period, the revenue of Xiaomi’s IoT and consumer products business reached RMB 15.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 44.4%; The global shipment of Xiaomi TV exceeded 3.1 million units, a year-on-year increase of 59.8%; The number of connected devices (excluding smartphones and notebooks) of Xiaomi IoT platform reached 210 million, up 62.0% year-on-year; Xiao Ai, an assistant of artificial intelligence, had 57.9 million monthly active users in September, a year-on-year increase of 68.6%.
In November, Huawei’s new product launch conference also emphasized smart speakers and IoT layout. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, said that it will become a routine to launch a conference dedicated to IoT equipment in the future.
Huawei’s consumer business strategy can be summarized as "1+8+N", where 1 is the mobile phone as the main entrance, 8 is eight auxiliary entry-level devices such as PC, tablet, smart screen, speaker, glasses, watch, earphone and car machine, and N is other devices such as smart travel, audio-visual entertainment and so on. Huawei only does parts 1 and 8, and as a "+"chip, it is responsible for connection, and does not set foot in other equipment.
Back to Tmall Elf, Du Haitao told the First Financial Reporter that the concept of Tmall Elf voice system consists of two parts — — First, the whole voice system of Tmall Elf is currently implemented in CC system and cube sugar system. The system is divided into two parts: soft and hard. The soft part is Ali’s strategy this year, that is, from home to car to business environment. The basic strategy continues from self-research of Tmall Elf hardware, and then to launch joint-name products with partners, and at the same time share the products in the car to be a car elf. At present, CC and cube sugar still account for the largest proportion of self-research in the whole equipment distribution of Tmall Elf. In addition, the second camp is the product of cooperation between Tmall Elf and the outside world; The third camp is the car.
Platforms including Ali Tmall Elf, Huawei and Xiaomi tend to adopt the strategy of enriching vertical products when laying out IoT. However, different vertical algorithms are different. In view of this, Ru Yi, general manager of the hardware terminal of Alibaba Artificial Intelligence Lab, said that this is indeed a puzzle and problem. Accessing new categories requires a lot of language training. Last year, the team spent a long time collecting a lot of voice and language training, which takes us a lot of time and corpus. It is impossible to recognize it immediately by just entering a paragraph into the machine.
According to Canalys data, in the first quarter of 2019, China’s smart speaker shipments accounted for 51% of the world’s total, surpassing the United States for the first time to become the world’s largest smart speaker market. In the first three quarters, Tmall Elf, Baidu and Xiaomi captured 93% of the domestic market, with market share of 38%, 30% and 25% respectively.