Will 2018 be the year of the smart speaker in China?
Major Chinese internet companies with a large ecosystem of content and services, such as Baidu and Alibaba, have a big advantage in driving demand for smart speakers across the country
If their exhibition on the floor of the CES trade show in Las Vegas proved a trend, then China’s technology giants are betting smart speakers to be the next big thing in the consumer electronics market on the mainland.
E-commerce companies Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com, along with internet search service Baidu, took the wraps off their latest smart speakers at the world’s biggest annual consumer technology event last week.
While sales of smart speakers are growing fast in the United States, demand in China remains nascent.
Smart speakers are often advertised as voice-activated virtual assistants for the home that can help users hail a ride, order pizza, provide weather updates and even order a gift online.
For the major Chinese internet companies, smart speakers not only help gather data for things like user preferences and speech patterns, it also ensures that users stay within their ecosystem of services – especially useful to e-commerce service providers like JD.com and Alibaba.
Antonio Wang, the associate vice-president at IDC China’s client system research, predicted smart speakers to be China’s next big consumer electronics trend, with the country poised to swiftly become the second-largest market for these devices behind the US this year.