China's smart speaker market has seen a 314% increase in Q3, with baidu holding the no. 1 spot

According to the latest "Chinese Smart Speakers Retail Market Monthly Tracker" report by Runto, the third quarter of 2019 was the "low season" after the great promotion in 618 years. The sales volume did not decline but increased. The Retail volume of China's Smart Speakers Market was 9.26 million units, up 314% year on year and 8.5% month on month.In the first three quarters, retail sales of smart speakers in China reached 25.18 million units, up 265% year-on-year.

The main growth drivers still come from Tmall, baidu and xiaomi.Relying on continuous low price promotion, their unique channel advantages, continuous upgrade products, three head brands firmly occupy the dominant position of the market.In the third quarter of 2019, the three brands had a combined market share of 93.3 percent, according to Runto estimates.

The three-way battle continues

In terms of products, Tmall spirit, baidu and xiaomi all launched two new products this quarter.Tmall spirit is a more cost-effective screen speaker CCL and a focus on the young consumer group IN sugar, but both models were launched at the end of September, is still IN the stage of volume, shoulder the burden of sales is still a hundred yuan price range of sugar series.Baidu's xiaodu play and xiaodu play youth edition have been upgraded in terms of product appearance and functions. The products support intelligent projection screen, voice control and DLNA's smart TV, OTT box and projector.Baidu's advantage is still in the screen speaker, since 2019 to sit firmly in the first screen speaker category.Xiaomi has released the new love speaker and love speaker Pro, but the increase comes mainly from the cut-price play and touch screen speakers.

In terms of channels, sasac requires operators to reduce subsidies for smart terminals such as mobile phones and set-top boxes, which affects the sales of various brands in operators' channels.But open channel (brand experience shop, home appliance chain and 3 c chain, etc.) well, especially Tmall elves in the progress of the cooperation in the IoT link, such as online linkage with starbucks, ali health online O2O mutual drainage, as well as, intelligent household appliances enterprise joint promotions, etc.

Screen speaker strategic position prominent

Screen speakers have become the most important segment of the smart speaker market.The screen transforms the intelligent speaker from a single voice interaction to a multi-mode interaction of voice + vision, which effectively improves the efficiency of information output.According to online monitoring data from Runto, the market share of screen speakers reached 17% in the third quarter of 2019, up 1.0 percentage points from the previous quarter and 13.0 percentage points from the first quarter.

Commercialization is already on the agenda for a number of companies, and Robin, an analyst at lotto technologies, believes that the screen speaker brings more commercialization possibilities because the screen can carry more services and content and can penetrate more life scenarios.For example, the pop-up ads on screen speakers have a higher tolerance for users who are used to video ads.In addition, for services that provide more value, screens have better carrying capacity than screens.

The Chinese Smart Speakers Retail Market Monthly Tracker from Runto provides Monthly updates on the Retail data of the overall Market and the online Market in terms of Retail volume size, sub-channel, brand and product type, as well as the best-selling models and price trends.