Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

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The once-popular sports smart bracelet has the momentum to be popular again.

A few years ago, the market for smart wearers was in full swing, and sports smart bracelets were the most dazzling stars. According to third-party data research institutions, global smart bracelets shipped 45 million units in 2016, while smartwatches were 32 million. Fitbit, Apple Watch and Xiaomi accounted for the top three shipments, and all had sales of 10 million.

However, the good times are not long, "chicken ribs, pseudo-intelligence" and other bad reviews emerge one after another, just a few years after the collapse of Jawbone, Xiaomi smart bracelet sales decline, smart bracelet market capital self-danger. In recent years, the market for sports smart bracelets has returned to calm, with occasional news of new products, but none of them has become a splash.

Nowadays, with the rapid innovation of intelligent technology and the increase of user recognition, the sports smart bracelet market has burst into new energy.

Smart bracelets are making a comeback

Under the epidemic, the news that "smart bracelets are expected to play a greater role in disease prevention" has set off an upsurge of smart bracelets.

It is reported that a research paper "A new intelligent bracelet with artificial intelligence algorithm is used to detect atrial fibrillation" has attracted academic attention. Research shows that the accuracy of judging atrial fibrillation by the two functions of Huami technology smart bracelet is more than 90%. This means that smart bracelets are more helpful to monitor human health and play a positive role in people's healthy life.

Under this public opinion, people rekindle their enthusiasm for smart bracelets.

In fact, in the days when smart bracelet manufacturers devote themselves to spiritual practice, the market for smart bracelets has expanded several times, and in the field of smart wear, smart bracelets are still the most popular category.

According to the latest report released by Canalys, global shipments of smart bracelets reached 45.5 million in the third quarter of 2019, a sharp increase of 65% compared with the same period last year. Xiaomi, Apple, Huawei, Fitbit and Samsung occupy the top five positions in shipments, with the combined market share of the top five brands approaching 70 per cent.

Among them, the Greater China region grew by 60% year-on-year, accounting for 40.2% of the global market share, while the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Greater China) soared 130% year-on-year; in the Middle East and Africa, smart bracelets grew by 64% year-on-year. North America reached 43%.

And it's not surprising that sports smart bracelets are making a comeback.

On the one hand, health is an eternal topic, smart bracelets to health care as a starting point in the hands of consumers. As far as health monitoring is concerned, the exercise smart bracelet can detect the user's heart rate, sleep, amount of exercise, body temperature and other health data, and reflect the user's physical condition through the analysis of these health data, which is deeply loved by middle-aged people who call for good health.

On the other hand, for young consumers, smart wearable products are a symbol of the trend, that is, the label of hipsters. Innovations and changes in appearance, color matching, strap, dial and other design details have made smart wearable devices more and more fashionable and more popular with young consumers. At the same time, smart bracelet manufacturers provide different bracelet designs for different user groups, expanding the coverage of smart bracelets.

In short, whether from health or fashion items, smart bracelets have become an indispensable part of people's life, mining space is infinite. However, for Xiaomi, Apple and other smart bracelet brands, it is not only to stand on the tuyere but also to keep a rational guard against the enemy, after all, the lesson of Fitbit is at hand.

Lessons learned from Fitbit

Fitbit has created the myth of smart wearers and has not escaped consumers'"love of the new and hate of the old".

In 2009, Fitbit launched the famous Fitbit Tracker, which laid the foundation for the follow-up great progress. Fitbit Tracker can be used to help users collect data such as mobile distance, steps, calorie consumption and so on, and feedback the user's health from the data. This product soon became popular in the North American market and gradually spread all over the world.

In the next few years, Fitbit continued to deepen the wearable market, combined with smart technology to launch a number of smart bracelets, becoming the first listed wearable device manufacturer, establishing the "dominant" position of smart wearable. It is reported that in 2014, Fitbit's wearable market share reached 45%, with annual shipments of 10.9 million units and paid active users reaching 6.7 million.

It was in the same year that Fitbit turned from prosperity to decline, Fitbit's new smart bracelet Charge appeared the phenomenon of skin allergy of some users, Fitbit word-of-mouth plummeted, sales declined.

In addition to product quality problems, Fitbit has also encountered price attacks from domestic Huawei, Apple and Xiaomi.

In terms of price comparison, the price of the Fitbit smart bracelet is about 1000 yuan, while the prices of Xiaomi and Huawei are as low as 100 yuan, and the functions of the bracelet, including time, heart rate monitoring, pacing and so on, are basically the same. In the price shock war, Fitbit was quickly defeated, coupled with the market situation is not optimistic, Fitbit was permanently squeezed out of the first echelon of smart bracelets.

On December 3, 2019, Fitbit walked completely into the dust and was forced to sell his body. Google will buy fitness tracker and smartwatch company Fitbit for $2.1 billion, Google announced.

Industry insiders believe that Google's acquisition of Fitbit is a wise move. Google, which lags behind in smart wearability, hopes to keep its hardware business stable through the acquisition of Fitbit, and the declining Fitbit will be able to survive as a result, which is a win-win choice. But consumers don't think so, and some Fitbit users are worried that Google's acquisition of Fitbit will reveal their personal health data and plan to abandon Fitbit products altogether.

In short, natural selection survival of the fittest, in the smart bracelet market, the fall of a generation of overlords, the rise of new overlords.

The era of smart bracelets of Huawei and Xiaomi

2014 is the first year of domestic smart hardware, and it is this year that the market set off a wave of smart bracelets. Internet giants such as Xiaomi, Huawei and 360 arrive in an attempt to preempt the smart bracelet market.

The foreign smart bracelet started earlier, and the domestic smart bracelet made great efforts to catch up, until Xiaomi's low-cost smart bracelet came out, the market pattern changed. In 2017, Xiaomi launched a 100-yuan smart bracelet, attracting the attention of price-sensitive consumers, and then started the era of 100-yuan smart bracelet in China.

With high performance-to-price ratio and good reputation, Xiaomi smart bracelet quickly gained a foothold in the market.

According to IDC, global sales of 72.6 million wearable devices in Q1 increased by 29.7% in 2020 compared with the same period last year. Among them, Apple, Xiaomi and Samsung occupy the top three market share with 23.7%, 11.6% and 9.0% respectively. In the top three, Apple and Samsung are dominated by smartwatches, while Xiaomi relies on smart bracelets to surpass Huawei and Fitbit to occupy the second market share.

In addition, in the domestic smart bracelet market, Huawei ranks first with a market share of 32.9%, Xiaomi ranks second with 20.1%, and Lexin ranks third with a market share of 7.9%.

Of course, the lesson of Fitbit tells us that even if we have the upper hand, we should pay attention to market changes and guard against enemy invasion.

Although the function and shape of the smart bracelet are constantly changing, consumers' demand for the smart bracelet is always increasing, such as social functions, more accurate health monitoring functions and so on. At present, the function of smart bracelet products are homogeneous, the appearance is more or less the same, consumers do not have much choice, nothing new has become the biggest problem in the smart bracelet market.

Even if smart bracelet brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei continue to launch new products and emphasize their more powerful functions, when it comes to the health area that consumers pay attention to, smart bracelets are still difficult to meet the needs of consumers. After all, smart bracelets are worse than medical-grade smart wearers, but have more health monitoring functions than ordinary bracelets. It can be expected that for a long time there has been no breakthrough in function, no innovation in design, and the smart bracelet will be labeled "chicken rib" again.

The cruel law of the market is: with the demise of a brand or a product, there will be new competitive products to make up for places. In the era of rapid development of intelligent technology, there are no irreplaceable products and no long-standing brand, always vigilant against the competition of other brands is still the rule of survival. Of course, as a brand of smart bracelet, it is also crucial to deeply study advanced technology, innovate product functions, increase diverse design and play, and meet the different needs of users.

In short, the smart bracelet market is coming and going, and the brands that can stick to it must be brands that keep pace with the times, are close to consumers, and are in the lead in the strength of technology products.

(official account of Liu Kuang / tr. by Phil Newell) ID:liukuang110

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