Major changes in the voice chip market
In recent years, the voice chip market has undergone great changes. In the past two years, everyone has been talking about offline voice chips. However, with the efforts of various manufacturers in the past few years, the price of offline voice chips has fallen, and the market shipments But there is no obvious improvement.
In the offline voice chip market, there are three manufacturers with shipments exceeding one million, Qiyingtailun, Yunzhisheng, and Mutual Technology. In the past two years, the shipments of these three manufacturers have basically maintained at 5-6 million. , The entire market has shipped 7-8 million units, with no significant increase.
The application of voice has changed a lot
The offline voice chip market shipments are difficult to increase, mainly because there are not so many markets for rigid demand. Many markets that were originally considered feasible are gradually being replaced by other applications, such as TWS headsets. Previously, TWS headsets wanted to be intelligent and had a wake-up function. The Bluetooth chip is implemented with a voice chip. However, the shipment of this application is very small, mainly due to the cost. Later, Qualcomm, Hengxuan and other manufacturers directly added the voice function to the large-capacity MCU, instead of plugging an external one. Voice chip.
Miao Wei, the founder of Mutual Technology, introduced to electronic enthusiasts that Android TVs have almost achieved full penetration of voice. Major domestic TV manufacturers are using voice functions on more and more TVs. The far-field method directly built into the TV. From the aspect of use, there are ways to use an external dedicated voice chip, and some have the voice function directly built into the TV main control chip. At present, Mutual provides both types of output in the TV field at the same time.
The current application of voice has been changing to the integration of the Internet of Things and multimedia. Miao Wei said that the mode of mutual inquiry is also changing. In the past two years, the company’s offline voice chips have basically maintained their original shipments, about 1.5 million pieces per year. At present, offline voice chips account for almost 20% of the company’s total output value. New types of applications account for a relatively large proportion, such as audio fusion applications, including panels, TV, IPC and other fields.
Under this application trend, if you only focus on the offline voice chip market, there is actually no way to truly empower voice to all walks of life. Therefore, the way to ask each other is to cooperate with traditional large chip manufacturers and combine their original voice technology. Advantages and chip manufacturers’ advantages in chip design and production capacity will jointly apply voice to more industries.
There is a problem in the development of audio and video integration. For example, when audio is combined with TV, camera, and Bluetooth, if the product is mainly video, not voice, then even if the voice chip enters the market, the future will follow. With the explosive growth of the market, in order to optimize costs, the video-based chip will definitely be compatible with voice functions.
In fact, this is not a bad thing for the voice industry. For example, in the TV field, manufacturers such as MTK and Jingchen want to add voice functions to their chips based on cost considerations, but they do not have this ability themselves, which requires Cooperate with vendors that have advantages in voice technology. It can be said that cooperation between companies with advantages in AI voice and manufacturers with advantages in chip design and production capacity will help promote better voice applications.
The penetration rate of voice applications in home appliances is gradually increasing
The application areas of voice include wearables, home appliances and vehicles. From the current application situation, smart phones and smart wearables are the main carriers of voice. Smart home products and vehicles are gradually infiltrating. In terms of the current scale, The market size of smart voice in 2020 has reached 24.11 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 33.75 billion yuan in 2021.
In terms of home appliance applications, almost all categories of home appliances currently have voice functions, including televisions, air conditioners, electric fans, electric lights, range hoods, ovens, and some new home appliances categories, but the penetration rate is different. According to electronic enthusiasts, at present, Android TVs are basically voice-enabled, and there are about 20 million TV sets sold in China each year that carry voice functions.
Air-conditioning is also a category with faster voice penetration in home appliances. Xu Yansong, vice president of Lingsi, told electronic enthusiasts that from the perspective of contact with customers, Haier, Midea, TCL, Yunmi, Gree, Oaks, Whirlpool, Shinco, Panasonic and other manufacturers The air conditioner has been voiced this year. He believes that the application of voice in the air conditioner market will soon become popular. According to his analysis, the annual production capacity of air conditioners is 40-50 million units. If 50% of them are voiced, there will be 20 million units, which is huge for the voice industry. In the market, it is estimated that there will be 2 million air conditioners with voice functions at the end of this year.
In the automotive industry, in-vehicle interactive systems based on intelligent voice have become mainstream. Spitz said that the company has many partners and landing products in the fields of smart cars, home furnishings and wearables, such as Wuling, Xiaopeng, Ideal, Xiaomi TV, Midea air-conditioning and so on.
Spitz is optimistic about the smart terminal product market. The company believes that because this is closely related to people’s lives, the market demand for products is great, and users have a high degree of acceptance of good products. For example, the previous smart speaker products are almost Become an indispensable product in the lives of young people. In addition, common black appliances, white appliances, and in-vehicle terminals are also facing the need for product upgrades and iterations, and the market space is very large.
Chip, algorithm and equipment manufacturers need to pay attention to scenario co-creation
There are still some problems in the full application of voice. In the interview, Xu Yansong shared a very typical situation. When they communicate with downstream customers, they found that there is a gap between customers and consumers. Their cognition and needs The point is different. Consumers believe that the voice in home appliances should be as easy to use as speakers. Home appliance manufacturers believe that the voice function can be realized by putting the speaker board in the home appliance.
In fact, putting the board in the speaker on the range hood can realize the voice function, but the effect is not ideal, because the cabinet, structure, and installation environment of the device itself are different. For example, put the voice board in the speaker in the air. There are many problems in the clothes rack, such as not waking up, and ringing when it’s okay, because the clothes racks are mostly on the balcony and the outside is very noisy. The door may be a road or a shopping mall. The children in the community are shouting, and the clothes rack will ring.
Voice is used in different application scenarios, and the algorithm model, wake-up noise reduction, etc. are different. In many cases, home appliance manufacturers do not really think about why they want to add voice and what problems can be solved for customers. Therefore, chip, algorithm and equipment manufacturers need to pay attention to the scene. Co-creation, to study the pain points and needs of users in the actual scene, Xu Yansong believes that only by figuring out the scene can you be able to output excellent products and truly empower consumers.
He shared a case. A customer wanted to make an air conditioner suitable for bedridden elderly people. This needs to consider the needs of bedridden elderly people. Try to make the operation of the air conditioner simple and automatic enough. For example, you only need to say “Turn on the air conditioner” and “Turn off the air conditioner.” “Air conditioner”, the air conditioner can judge the elderly based on the voice print, automatically adjust the temperature to the comfortable mode, and the wind does not blow to the elderly, etc.
This is the application of voiceprint technology in air conditioners; there is also a function similar to the wind following the sound. The user says “the wind blows towards me” and “not towards me”. The device judges the position through the function of sound source positioning, and then controls the air conditioner wind direction. To realize this function, it needs the support of the algorithm company, the support of the chip, and the cooperation of the motor of the air conditioner manufacturer. However, the application of these functions in real life requires the joint discussion of the manufacturer, algorithm, and chip, in order to find the segmentation scene. Appropriate solution.
Xu Yansong has repeatedly emphasized that chip and algorithm manufacturers must co-create with customers and thoroughly research scenarios. When helping customers implement voice functions in different scenarios, they also need to match the algorithm. AI chips are used in end users’ devices. The algorithm company needs to adjust the algorithm to finally realize a good application.
On the whole, the application of voice chips has undergone great changes in recent years, and the penetration rate of voice in various home appliances is also rapidly increasing. If you want home appliances and other equipment manufacturers to use voice faster, it is more important It is still necessary to work with these manufacturers to develop solutions and products that can truly solve user problems in accordance with the needs of users’ subdivision scenarios.
With the development of voice in the direction of Internet of Things and multimedia integration, in the process of cooperation between AI voice companies and traditional large chip manufacturers, there may be cases of mergers and acquisitions in the next few years. Traditional chip manufacturers want to make voice and vision applications. The most direct way is cooperation or even acquisition.
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