Will discounts on smart speakers give Baidu a toehold in the market for AI-enabled devices?

Baidu, China’s dominant internet search engine operator, has unveiled its third voice-activated smart speaker in eight months, selling it at a fraction of rivals’ prices as it grapples for a toehold in the world’s most competitive consumer market.

The Xiaodu, released yesterday in the Chinese capital, sells for a discounted price of 89 yuan (US$14), about two-thirds cheaper than its normal retail price of 249 yuan. The entry-level model, which can play “over 7,000 music tags” to fit different scenarios or moods, is the cheapest model compared to those made by Xiaomi, Alibaba, JD.com or Cheetah.

The smart speaker is empowered with artificial intelligence (AI), a major area of focus for Baidu and its division in autonomous driving, which enables it to be “individualised after 30 days of use,” said Baidu’s smart living group (SLG) general manager Jing Ku. “The most you use [the speaker], the better it will understand you.”

The Chinese company is a latecomer among voice-activated smart home devices, a US$14.7 billion global market dominated by Amazon’s Alexa and Echo, Google’s Home and Apple’s HomePod in the English-speaking world. None of the global brands have made a dent in the mandarin Chinese-speaking market, where more than 100 companies are developing smart speakers.

Baidu had ventured into the crowded market before, with its 1,699-yuan Raven H smart speaker in November, the seen as the centrepiece in the company’s takeover of Beijing start-up Raven Tech.

The device, at triple the price of Alibaba’s smart speaker and four times the price of a Xiaomi model, sold fewer than 10,000 units, according to a report in The Information website. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.