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What is Smart Home Technology
Smart Home Technology is the use of technology to permit homeowners to control many aspects of their habitation through internet and devices.
Smart Home Technology allows full automation and can be used for home security, controlling and monitoring devices. It, undoubtedly, makes people’s life more convenient, especially elderly, and disabled.
The Smart Home Technology has a central control which manipulates everything in your apartment. It enables you to control with only one device, such as: phone, remote or tablet, things like lights, heating, dish washer and dryer.
Major Company in the Market
Xiaomi
Like Amazon Alexa as well as Google Assistant, Xiaomi is one of the biggest suppliers of Smart Home Technology products in the Chinese market. The company is embracing the smart-home era of China and the Smart Home Technology is compatible to millions of devices from other brands.
The biggest assets of Xiaomi are reliability and affordability. Xiaomi’s products are almost half the price of Alexa, Google, and other competitors in China. It is not surprising that Xiaomi is a company known for being good at controlling price to gain a significant competitive advantage.
One of the best Xiaomi home devices is the “Home Security Camera”. There are more than 20 versions of it, giving customers a broad range of options. The product covers wide angle, night vision and intelligent detection.
The success of Xiaomi’s Smart Home Technology products comes from its strategy. They take the expensive product from the market and make a cheaper version of it. However, they can make the cheaper version reliable. In China, there are a lot of middle and lower-class consumers who find Xiaomi’s products much more affordable than others, hence becoming their customers.
Sales and Marketing
1. Determine the Characteristics of the Customers
It is important to advertise the product to the customers based on their characteristics. It is important to accurately define your reference target in terms of sex, income, age, and reason for purchasing smart home technology products. A disabled person is more likely to have different reasons to purchase the product compared to a teenager. They are also going to use the Smart Home Technology differently. Hence, it is important to design variations of Smart Home Technology products to fulfil different types of clients need.
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective and cheapest way to acquire new clients. The company only needs to set up an automated email campaign to allow customers to subscribe. The company can regularly create new contents related to their product and send them to customers in order to update them with the most recent versions.
Regulation
The Smart Home Technology companies must abide by the Chinese Internet Security Regulation. Since Smart Home Technology uses the internet and extracts personal data extensively, it can lead to internet security problems as the information being leaked or stolen.
International Market
The international Smart Home Industry is expected to be worth USD 622.59 billion by 2026 with CAGR of 29.3%.
The market has expanded rapidly since 2016 and it is mainly not affected by Covid-19 since many people stays at home and more users choose to rely on smart home technology.
Currently, North America is the largest revenue contributor to the global Smart Home Technology market while the Asian market is growing at CAGR 23.9%.
Industry Opportunities
1. Opportunity in the Green Energy Industry
Many developing countries, including China are utilizing green building policies. The policies promote energy management smart devices such as smart plugs, meters, and thermometers. This opportunity enables companies to expand their services to the green energy industry to provide products that create a sustainable environment.
2. Increasing Awareness of Safety and Security
The increasing urbanization and rising standard of living have caused many people to be aware of safety issue. Many households prefer to install security camera at home and monitor home situation while outdoor, helping them to detect intruders as soon as possible. Furthermore, the increasing expenditure of the government on creating smart ecosystem has also raised people’s awareness of safety and security.
Industry Forecast
1. Internet Intelligence Growth
The Chinese government is prioritizing Smart Home Technology when it comes to developing internet intelligence. In the this industry is going to focus more on integrating 5G, deep learning and big data. This will create products with more precision and safety for customers use.
2. Customization of New Generation
As the current teenagers tend to prefer fashion, personality and customization consuming, Smart Home Technology can embrace this culture and expand its market. Many young customers require upper-class, unique, and intelligent smart home products that permit them to brag in front of their friends. Therefore, in the future the customers of the product are going to be mostly young generations.
Industry Challenges
Information Security Problem
Although Smart Home Technology brings convenience to many users, it also faces safety concerns. Many Smart Home Technologies, especially from less known companies, are easily hackable and can be monitored from long range. This causes the user’s information being sold and harms user’s interests. In addition, if the door can be hacked, the homeowners may be exposed to physical safety issues. Lastly, the host servers of the Smart Home Technology company may face internet attack which may neutralize the internet services.
Summary
Smart Home Technology industry in China has huge growth potential, but the industry is dominated by Xiaomi.
Smart Home Technology can be applied in many industries, making companies have wide range of options for services
Smart Home Technology still faces many challenges, the biggest one being information security problems.