With the rapid development of technologies such as 5G, big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, various types of intelligent hardware products have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, including educational intelligent hardware and home intelligent hardware… In addition to the popularity of these intelligent hardware products among consumers, pet intelligent hardware products have also become the favorite of many pet owners.
New and old players such as Xiaopei Pets and Xiaoyi Intelligent have also closely grasped user needs, developed and launched a large number of pet intelligent hardware products, in line with the dividends of the pet economy and seeking new development opportunities.
Pet Intelligent Hardware “Dragon Tiger Fight”
The pet hardware market is booming
In recent years, the continuous entry of pet track players, including pets and Xiaoyi Intelligent, has added another spark to the already popular pet intelligent hardware track. The expansion of the pet market scale and the improvement of user purchasing willingness indicate a broad prospect for the pet intelligent hardware market.
From the perspective of the pet market, the continuous increase of pet owners has driven the continuous expansion of the pet market. For pet owners, pets can to some extent alleviate their sense of loneliness and provide them with psychological comfort. Therefore, an increasing number of elderly people, young people working outside, and other groups are placing their emotions on pets, which is also reflected in the increase in the number of pet owners. According to the 2021 China Pet Industry White Paper, the number of people raising dogs and cats in China will reach 68.44 million in 2021, an increase of 8.7% compared to 2020.
With the increase of pet owners, the scale of the pet consumption market is also constantly expanding. According to the “2021 China Pet Consumption Trends White Paper” released by iResearch Consulting, the compound growth rate of the domestic pet market reached 32.8% from 2015 to 2020; It is expected that the compound growth rate in the next three years will be 14.2%, and the scale will reach 445.6 billion yuan by 2023.
From the perspective of user purchasing power, pet smart hardware is popular. With the shift of pet owners’ pet raising concepts towards a scientific and refined direction, pet intelligent products have become the “little assistant” of pet owners’ pet raising. The new consumption report shows that during the “618” period this year, the sales of Tmall’s pet smart hardware have surged 13 times; According to JD data, the trading volume of pet smart products increased by 30 times year-on-year, with only 15 minutes of opening on June 1st.
According to other data, during the Tmall 618 period this year, pet smart devices have become one of the most popular choices for “fecal officials”, with a year-on-year increase of nearly 150%. Pet intelligent companion robots, automatic feeders, and intelligent litter pots were also selected as the top three in the field of cute intelligence. From the above data, it is not difficult to find that more and more pet owners are purchasing smart devices to provide their pets with a better quality of life.
Little Pet Strong
Among the many players who have entered the pet intelligent hardware circuit, Pet .
On the product side, Aichong opens up the user market through intelligent hardware products and drives profit growth through sales of supporting consumables. Xiaopei Pet’s intelligent hardware products include intelligent cat litter pots, induction cat toilets, intelligent cold and warm nests, and other products, all equipped with supporting consumables. Taking Xiaopei’s intelligent cat litter basin as an example, its consumables include four auxiliary consumables: specialized cat litter, deodorizing formula, purification solution, and specialized garbage bag.
Regarding this, Guo Weixue, the founder of Xiaopei Pet, believes that consumables can drive purchases, so the setting of SKUs is based on a combination of durable goods and consumables. This “product+ease of use” strategy not only expands the scope of pet pets, pet .
In terms of ecology, Xiaopei Pet has integrated its intelligent pet hardware into a larger ecosystem. Specifically, Xiaopei Pets has reached a partnership with Samsung SmartThings to further complete its pet smart home ecological layout. At present, many smart pet hardware products are connected to the pet owner’s phone, providing feedback on pet food and drink data to the owner, while Pet Pet Pet is connected to Samsung’s smart home system. After connecting, users can access SmartThings https://store.stoneitech.com/ Connect to manage Pet Pet smart supplies,
In this way, Xiaopei Pet not only achieves the synergy between pet smart hardware products and smart home hardware products, but also further improves the user experience after connecting to the Samsung smart home ecosystem.
Xiaoyi Intelligent Brave
Compared to the former, Xiaoyi Intelligence can be called the new luxury of pet intelligence hardware circuits. The high battle route is different from that of Xiao Peichong. Xiaoyi Intelligent mainly feeds back the pet intelligent hardware market with its products.
Firstly, Xiaoyi Intelligent focuses on technological output and product performance transformation, creating multi-level product capabilities and capturing the minds of consumers. For example, in terms of technology, Xiaoyi Intelligent not only has its own research and development team, but also has strategic cooperation with several well-known university laboratories such as Graffiti Intelligent and Harbin Robotics. Strong technical strength, with over 130 product invention patents, including cat toilet safety door technology, music feeding and other technologies. In short, with its technological strength, Xiaoyi Intelligent not only creates differentiated selling points for its products, but also has characteristics such as safety and convenience, thus attracting a large number of users to purchase.
According to Tmall data, during the “Double 11” period in 2021, the “Xiaofan” fully automatic smart cat toilet became a popular model, ranking top 1 on the best-selling list of cat litter pots and occupying the top 3 on Tmall. Praised for a long time. From its booming sales, it can be seen that Xiaoyi Intelligent has strong product power.
Secondly, Xiaoyi Intelligent strengthens its control over the production, research, and sales processes, constructs a one-stop operation system, and reduces enterprise costs. For example, in the development stage, OneSmart focuses on user experience and comments, and conducts research and development around core needs; During the production process, OneSmart adopts a “self-produced+supply chain” model, ensuring product quality through self-produced core components and strengthening screening of upstream and downstream industries to ensure quality control; In the sales sector, OneSmart has both C-end and B-end users, synchronously implementing an online and offline omnichannel layout to improve the coverage of each channel.
Xiaoyi Intelligent’s comprehensive control over the production, research, and sales processes not only enhances its bargaining power with supply chain merchants, but also reduces trial and error costs. It has also opened up the user market and driven product sales, thereby expanding the profit space of the enterprise and presenting a strong development trend.
The situation remains severe
Although pet intelligent hardware is favored by pet owners and the circuit form of pet intelligent hardware is also good, its development trend is still relatively stable.
From an industry perspective, pet intelligent hardware circuits have not yet surpassed the top players, making it difficult to form a leading role. As is well known, top players in various industries have a suppressive effect on other players in the same industry, which to some extent will force the industry towards standardization and lead its development. However, the current pet intelligent hardware circuit is in a state of lacking leadership from top players. Therefore, its industry standards are also lacking, making a series of industry issues such as homogenization and insecurity still affecting the development of the industry.
In addition, “pseudo intelligence” has also led to frequent consumer criticism of pet smart hardware products. For example, intelligent pet feeding machines often encounter problems such as food stagnation, internet disconnection, and inability to use. These issues all indicate that some pet intelligent hardware products have not truly touched on intelligence, not only failing to meet the basic needs of pet owners, but also bringing new problems to pet owners.
From the perspective of player trends, under the influence of various factors, most domestic brands have chosen to go overseas for survival. On the one hand, the domestic pet intelligent hardware market is far less mature than the overseas market, and the user market is still in the cultivation period, which is not conducive to product promotion. The popularity rate of pets in China is much lower than that of other countries, which leads domestic manufacturers to lag behind overseas manufacturers in the research and development of pet intelligent hardware. As a result, the acceptance of pet smart hardware products by domestic users is far lower than that of overseas markets.
On the other hand, the Chinese pet intelligent hardware market has a large number of players and the track is accelerating, which is not conducive to the growth of emerging enterprises. Taking Xiaomi as an example, not only has it invested in the intelligent hardware brand “Cat and Dog”, but it has also collaborated to launch the Mijia intelligent pet water dispenser and intelligent pet feeder. It has also launched an intelligent pet drying box called “Bird’s Voice”, with a flower fragrance and natural wind “Xiaomi Youpin crowdfunding.
Xiaomi is known as the “price butcher”. In the pet intelligent hardware market, Xiaomi has also fully leveraged its price advantage. For example, Xiaomi Youpin’s intelligent pet drying box is priced at 1299 yuan, while the crowdfunding price is only 699 yuan. According to the 2021 China Pet Exquisite Consumption Map, the mainstream price of pet intelligent drying boxes ranges from 1500 to 2000 yuan. From the comparison, it can be seen that Xiaomi, relying on its own strength, has lowered the mainstream selling price of pet intelligent drying boxes. It can be said that industry newcomers will face price wars before being tested by users in the market, which is not conducive to the growth of new players.
It is worth noting that the research and development cost of pet intelligent hardware devices is high, and the enterprise has invested heavily in the early stage. Players also urgently need cash flow support. Therefore, in order to dilute this part of the cost, large-scale shipping has become the best choice for enterprises. The mature overseas market not only reduces the cost of user training for enterprises, but also is more inclusive and conducive to large-scale shipments, accelerating cost dilution for enterprises. It is reasonable for players to survive in the middle of the sea.
The lack of industry leaders and overseas layout reflect that domestic pet intelligent hardware players have not yet entered the finals, and the industry needs to inject new momentum.
Write at the end
At present, the “alternative economy” is in an explosive period, and the emerging pet intelligent hardware market cannot be underestimated, but the true users of this market are pets. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the pain points and difficulties in pet daily life, deeply touch on intelligence, truly meet the growth needs of pets, and reduce the pressure of pet owners to keep pets.
In addition, pets have become an important component of the family at this stage. If enterprises find it difficult to ensure the safety of pet intelligent hardware products, they will not receive recognition from the user market. After all, pet smart hardware products bring many safety issues. Therefore, in the long run, pet hardware manufacturers can only make pet owners willing to pay for their products from the perspective of product safety, and pet hardware manufacturers can go further.
