Daxue Consulting always strives to look at the product or service through the consumers’ eyes. Thus, our team systematically conducts different big and small (like this one) experiments in order to come across all the pros and cons of the goods or services in the Chinese market. Since one of our aims is to perform work efficiently based on both existing data and our own experience. We are always happy to share our insights with the readers.
The artificial intelligence and virtual reality are buzzing topics in China, we decided to focus this experiment on smart speakers as one of the most popular gadgets among Chinese consumers. Based on a report from analysts at Canalys, the worldwide smart speaker market grew 187 percent in the second quarter of 2018. Collectively, Apple, Google, Xiaomi, Amazon, and others shipped 16.8 million units, up from nine million in the first quarter. China accounted for 52 percent of the total growth worldwide, with Alibaba and Xiaomi accounting for 17.7 and 12.2 percent, respectively.
The four smart speakers from four various brands represented in the Chinese market were compared, namely “9420″ (Jiu Si Er Ling), which sounds like “I just love you” in Mandarin (Tencent); Xiaodu (Baidu), Alexa (Amazon) and Xiaoai (Xiaomi). The smart speakers have three main specifications buyers need to consider: size, audio quality and price, but our team decided to analyze the characteristics that can be evaluated through use. The experiment results indicated that voice interaction is the determining factor when using a smart speaker. This defines the ease of use and response speed. It can be concluded that Xiaodu and Alexa both were more sensitive to voice commands.
Our report on smart home devices in China:
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