In recent years, with the outbreak of sports industry, sports intelligent products have entered the era of rapid development. The size of China’s smart wearable market reached 35.26 billion yuan in 2017, with a growth rate of 35.7%, according to data released by China Business Industry Research Institute. After the technology and industrial model of the wearable industry continue to mature, the market size of smart wearable sports goods will reach 44.06 billion yuan in 2018, with a growth rate of 26.5%.
The emergence of smart sports wearable products makes sports more scientific. Users can customize professional training plans according to the data provided by smart products. In addition, the functions of listening to songs and voice reminders also provide users with more pleasant sports feelings, so smart wearables have become the new favorites of sports lovers in just a few years.
Traditional sports companies have withdrawn from the field of intelligence, why?
Whether it is the market demand or the future trend, smart products have many benefits and huge space for development, which has attracted a lot of players, especially some traditional sports manufacturers, also joined in a large number of sports smart wear field. Although the ideal is good, the reality is nothing. Most enterprises have poor sales in the sports smart wear market and have withdrawn from the sports smart products industry in the winter of the market.
In 2014, Nike, a well-known sports giant, shut down its smart sports hardware product line, including Nike+Fuelband and Nike+ sports watches, and also closed its smart sports hardware department. Then in November 2017, under Armour, a high-end sportswear brand, announced its withdrawal from the smart goods market; At the end of the same year, Adidas also announced it was discontinuing development of wearable hardware products…
The withdrawal of giants ushered in a “dark” era in the field of sports intelligent wear, and the market fell into a period of ebb, which can not help but make people question, is the field of sports intelligent demand? In fact, behind the withdrawal of sports brand giants, is the result of the dual role of internal factors of brands and external factors of the market.
Internal cause: Traditional sports giants lack electronics r&d genes
Although sports smart wearable products are closely related to sports, their bright spot is intelligence, which requires very high technology research and development technology. As can be imagined, it is undoubtedly a “crossover” attempt for giants starting from traditional sports to enter the smart wearable market. Moreover, sports smart wearables on the market are generally not smart enough. Most of them have simple functions and are not perfect. This is even more difficult for traditional sports enterprises without genes of science and technology research and development, and they have to explore slowly by themselves.
For example, Adidas launched Smart Run in 2013. Smart Run is a sports smartwatch with GPS, heart rate measurement, music playback and other features, which are not much better than products on the market today. In addition, the customized Version of Android 4.1 system used by the watch cannot be installed with other applications and lacks expansibility. It is a rather weak pseudo-intelligent sports product. The most important thing is that the battery life of the watch is poor. According to the user’s response, the Smart Run can only last for about two days if it is used for training alone. If other functions are used together, it can only last for one day and needs to be charged frequently, which is extremely inconvenient for the user who needs to wear the watch regularly.
From this point of view, traditional sports enterprises to enter the sports intelligence market, their own related technology, there are many shortcomings, did not meet the psychological expectations of the majority of users.
External cause: the market is not mature, the influx of many players makes the traditional sports enterprises more difficult
Of course, the lack of electronic equipment research and development gene internal reasons only set the threshold for traditional sports enterprises, and the complex external factors of the market is an important driving force that leads to the withdrawal of a large number of traditional sports enterprises from the sports intelligence market.
First, sports intelligent products are not popular, people lack of awareness of sports intelligent products. At present, the field of smart sports products is still in the stage of development, the market is not mature, and the public’s cognition of smart sports products still stays at the level of smart bracelets and smart watches. Smart wristbands and smartwatches accounted for 70 percent and 25 percent of China’s smart wearable device sales in 2017, while other products such as smart bikes and sports headphones accounted for only 5 percent, according to Zhiyin. Under such circumstances, smart products such as smart running shoes and smart weight scales launched by traditional sports companies are difficult to open up. In addition, smart products are usually expensive. For example, Apple Watch Series3, a sports smart Watch produced by Apple, costs more than 3,000 yuan, which makes consumers flinch. Therefore, the price greatly limits the popularity of smart sports products.
Second, mobile technology companies such as Apple and Xiaomi have come from behind to seize most of the market. According to data released by market research firm IDC, 25.1 million wearable devices were shipped worldwide in the first quarter of 2018, up 1.2 percent year-on-year. Among them, mobile phone company Apple firmly held the top position in sales, Chinese mobile phone brands Xiaomi and Huawei ranked second and fourth respectively, while Fitbit, the former leader of smart wear, ranked third. Compared to Huawei’s impressive 147.0% growth, Fitbit’s 28.1% decline is a worrying situation for Fitbit, which is likely to be overtaken by Huawei in the future.
From this point of view, mobile phone manufacturers seem to have a great advantage in the field of sports smart wear, and most of the market share has been captured by mobile phone manufacturers. Under the influence of these problems, traditional sports have no choice but to withdraw from the sports smart products market. However, while lamenting the demise of traditional sports giants, the sudden rise of mobile phone manufacturers is unexpected, so it has to be questioned why mobile phone manufacturers can become the players of smart sports products.
Why can mobile phone manufacturers become mainstream players of smart products?
Compared with traditional sports companies, mobile phone manufacturers’ unique genetic technology has become the biggest magic weapon for their rapid rise. Traditional sports enterprises will also encounter some resistance and technical difficulties in the process of research and development, while companies such as Apple and Huawei, which rely on technology to “make a living”, obviously have a higher starting point in the field of intelligence and better hardware facilities, so it is reasonable for traditional sports enterprises to lose. Of course, with technology as a productivity factor, there are two things that will make mobile phone makers shine in smart wearables.
On the one hand, the big handset manufacturers have a significant number of subscribers. As an essential communication tool for everyone, about 2.6 billion people around the world are using smart phones, among which Apple, Xiaomi and other big players have a large share of global shipments. Apple’s iPhone X has accumulated shipments of 16 million units in the first quarter of this year, accounting for 4.6% of the total shipments of smart phones. Xiaomi’s Redmi 5A also shipped 5.4 million units, indicating the large number of users made by these major handset manufacturers. Mobile phone makers have quickly gained a foothold in the market for tech derivatives such as smart wearable sports products, thanks to their number of users.
On the other hand, mobile phone manufacturers attract a large number of users through mobile apps. It is worth mentioning that handset makers not only provide users with intelligent dressing equipment, mobile phones also have corresponding softwares, such as millet, millet, huawei, huawei fitness, the two software along with other intelligent products are highly fitment, namely intelligent products produced by motion data can be connected with the handset maker software, Some mobile apps can also control sports smart devices to make them more “smart” and fun. The “ecological reverse” combination of software and hardware interoperability enables mobile phone manufacturers to achieve better applications in the field of smart wearable sports goods and optimize user experience. Moreover, mobile phone manufacturers have captured more sports users by taking advantage of sports tutorials, sports social networking and preferential activities on mobile phone software, thus promoting the consumption of sports wearable products.
Facing the impact of mobile phone manufacturers, how should traditional sports enterprises develop in the future?
In this way, many advantages of mobile phone manufacturers have contributed to their leading position in the field of sports intelligent wear. However, under the influence of the immature sports smart products industry and the difficulty of product popularization, mobile phone manufacturers can not rest easy, and there are even problems such as limited users. Under such an opportunity, traditional sports enterprises can still achieve a counterattack in the big market.
First of all, the functional breakthrough innovation, force to make intelligent supplies practical. Although there are a wide variety of sports intelligent products on the market at present, the general function is single and the homogenization problem is serious. Most smart products do little more than measure your heart rate, count your steps, and locate your GPS. How to make intelligent products more intelligent, more valuable, rather than stay in the measurement, positioning and other performance, to help enterprises achieve a breakthrough. When it comes to breakthrough and innovation, sports intelligent products and health may be a good direction in the future.
For example, smart clothes for sports, researchers propose that by built-in smart chips in clothes, mobile phone apps can be used to adjust the temperature, so as to provide more comfortable body temperature for athletes. In addition to routine functions such as heart rate measurement, GPS positioning and listening to songs, smart clothing also has the effect of promoting and improving blood circulation, enhancing immunity and preventing diseases, which is of great benefit to users. Of course, this is just an idea, I believe that there are a lot of similar functional creativity, research and development personnel need to continue to practice and explore.
Secondly, reduce the amount of sports intelligent supplies and add fuel to fashion. The so-called love the heart of beauty, everyone has, sports intelligent products, in addition to having a unique cool function, but also to pay attention to beautiful problems. However, there are many wearable devices in the market that do not have a good “appearance level”. Many wearable devices have a tough style and lack fashion elements. And some smart wearables are extremely heavy, making it inconvenient to exercise. Someone joked on the Internet that he bought a pair of smart running shoes at the end of the year, which were much heavier than ordinary running shoes. When he ran, it was like tying two sandbags on his legs, which was extremely difficult. There are also some smart watches, wearing on the arm for a long time will feel tired, “heavy” and “ugly” is the true portrayal of the current wearable products, even consumers interested in smart wearable sports products can only hold the cash. Therefore, smart sports wearables should be “small but beautiful”, get rid of heavy sports wearables, and use beautiful appearance to help promote and popularize smart sports products.
Finally, smart sports products are connected with smart scenes to improve data accuracy to enhance consumers’ sports experience. Sports smart products can provide a variety of data, such as steps, weight and calorie consumption, according to the user’s exercise situation. However, these data seem comprehensive, but actually they are not accurate enough. Some people have done professional tests, under the same conditions, using a smart bracelet to measure the number of steps taken by the user, but the results of several experiments were very different. Data errors have a great impact on users’ training plans and sports experience.
Therefore, how to make data more accurate and valuable is the focus of researchers’ breakthrough in the future. Some insiders point out that the combination of smart wearables with smart homes or smart venues will be the development trend of fitness in the future, that is, smart venues + smart devices. First, intelligent wearable devices and smart sites are interconnected, which can effectively solve the problem of inaccurate data. Secondly, the combination of the two can also make accurate judgment on the user’s movement and physical condition, and guide the user to make the right fitness movement, so as to bring more scientific and professional exercise experience for the athletes.
In general, China’s sports industry is now in a fast track, and sports intelligent products are indispensable for the future of sports. However, as an emerging field, the product functions of the sports intelligence industry are not perfect and the market is not mature, which also provides a favorable development space for players who are coveting sports wearable products. It is believed that in the future, with the efforts of innovative enterprises, sports smart wearables will develop into necessities for our daily fitness and truly help human health.
Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network