China wird der am schnellsten wachsende Markt für intelligente Brillen. Wer kann der Vorreiter werden?

Meta's AI glasses are out of stock again.

On October 21st, the Oakley Meta Vanguard, specially designed by Meta for high-intensity athletes, was officially launched. So far, all three products announced at Meta Connect's annual developer conference in September this year have been introduced. Among them, the upgraded second-generation Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses and the Meta Ray-Ban Display with a built-in display screen have triggered a rush to buy.

According to foreign media reports, the Meta Ray-Ban Display, which was launched at the end of September, is out of stock in offline retail stores, and the reservation for try-ons before November is full. According to calculations, the sales volume of Meta's full range of smart glasses in the second quarter of this year was about 750,000 pairs, a 50% increase from the first quarter.

In the first half of this year, the cumulative sales volume of Meta's smart glasses reached 1.26 million pairs; last year, the sales volume exceeded 1 million pairs. Another institution calculated that as of now, the total sales volume of Meta's smart glasses products has approached 3 million pairs.

Meta's hot sales have attracted many domestic manufacturers to enter the market. On October 24th, Alibaba's first self-developed Quark AI glasses were officially launched on its official Tmall store; Baidu's AI glasses project, "Xiaodu AI Glasses", will start pre-sales on November 1st; Xiaomi's AI glasses were launched as early as June this year. Coupled with emerging brands such as Thunderbird, Rokid, and Yingmu, which have already entered the market, the picture of the "Hundred Glasses War" is slowly unfolding.

Although there are more and more players, the current domestic smart glasses market is still in its early stage, and there is no absolute leading brand. In other words, before the "iPhone moment" of smart glasses arrives, any brand has the opportunity to become the leader. Who will it be?

The Chinese Smart Glasses Market Is Growing at an Encouraging Rate

Judging from the sales volume, it seems that everyone could be the leader.

During this year's 618 promotion period, Thunderbird Innovation's official battle report showed that its sales volume increased by 3.36 times year-on-year during the promotion period. Three models of smart glasses all won the top market position in their respective categories, with a market share of 52%. It also shouted the slogan, "For every two smart glasses sold, one is from Thunderbird Innovation."

However, Thunderbird did not announce the specific sales volume, and Xiaomi and Rokid's AI smart glasses products were not available during this year's 618 promotion period. The "Top 1" title without sales data support inevitably reduces its credibility.

Xiaomi announced the specific sales volume. After the product was launched in June this year, Xiaomi officially announced the number of device activations in the first week. The result of 30,000 units set a new record for the sales speed of the domestic AI glasses category.

Subsequently, the sales showed a trend of high start and low finish. According to data from Chanmama, after the peak in the first week of the product launch, the sales volume of Xiaomi glasses on Douyin has been decreasing day by day. As of October 28th, the daily sales volume has dropped to the range of 25 to 50 pairs. As of now, the total sales volume on Douyin is between 25,000 and 50,000 pairs.

Rokid is currently the brand that has announced the highest sales volume. In July this year, Zhu Mingming, the founder of Rokid, revealed that the sales volume of Rokid Glasses had reached 300,000 units.

It is worth noting that when Zhu Mingming announced this data, the product had not been officially launched. After a series of events such as delayed release and price increase, Rokid Glasses, as its first AI smart glasses, were not launched on all channels until September this year. After announcing that the sales volume exceeded 40,000 units in the first five days of sales, Rokid has not announced the specific sales volume to the outside world again. The statement of 300,000 units inevitably raises doubts from the outside world.

"The 300,000 units should be the data based on the deposit orders. The actual number of deliveries is far less than this. Considering its delivery cycle, the final sales volume should be quite different from 300,000 units," an industry observer told Aotou Finance.

The sales data from e-commerce platforms may better reflect the real market situation. According to the statistics of Aotou Finance, the cumulative sales volume of Rokid Glasses in the flagship stores of Tmall and JD.com as of now is more than 9,000 units; that of Xiaomi glasses is more than 60,000 units; and that of Thunderbird V3 is more than 15,000 units. Based on this data, Xiaomi has the best market response. There is still a big gap between Thunderbird, which claims to be "Top 1", and Rokid, which claims to have sold 300,000 units.

"The current domestic smart glasses market is still in its early stage. Announcing sales data from different dimensions that are beneficial to oneself helps to deepen users' understanding, similar to the early mobile phone marketing," the aforementioned industry observer said. "But in fact, the industry is far from the explosive stage, and there are also cases of 'false labeling' in the sales data."

In fact, the Chinese smart glasses market is growing at an encouraging rate, but the overall scale is not large.

A report released by IDC shows that in the first quarter of this year, the global smart glasses market shipments soared by 82.3%, reaching 1.487 million units. Among them, the shipments in the Chinese market were 494,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 116.1%. In the second quarter, the shipments in the Chinese market reached 664,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 145.5%.

This data means that the cumulative shipments of 1.158 million units in the domestic market in the first half of the year are still less than the sales volume of Meta alone. Another IDC report shows that in the second quarter of this year, the global smartphone shipments increased by 1% year-on-year, reaching 295.2 million units. In comparison, smart glasses are still a niche product.

The Supply Chain Needs to Be Strengthened

In fact, in addition to creating market buzz, manufacturers' "false labeling" of sales volume has another purpose, which is to gain more initiative in supply chain negotiations.

"Currently, no manufacturer can integrate all aspects such as optics, materials, hardware, and algorithms," an industry insider told Aotou Finance. "The shipment volume of a single manufacturer is not enough to persuade suppliers to set up a dedicated production line or department for R & D and production. Some product ideas cannot be realized due to supply chain problems."

This is a realistic situation. When the industry does not have enough orders, suppliers have no incentive to make technological breakthroughs and invest in production capacity.

Take Lens Technology, a supplier of Rokid, as an example. In the first half of this year, it achieved a revenue of 32.96 billion yuan, of which the revenue from smart headsets and smart wearables was 1.646 billion yuan, accounting for only 4.9% of the total revenue.

Imagine how much effort a supplier can put into a business that accounts for less than 5% of the total revenue? The incidents of delayed delivery and price increase of Rokid seem to illustrate this point.

Aotou Finance found that Rokid initially stated that the product would be launched in the second quarter of this year. In May this year, there were rumors that the delivery of Rokid Glasses would be postponed. Zhu Mingming publicly responded in an interview that "deliveries would start in late June." However, as of July this year, many users who had pre-ordered the product had not received their devices, and the full-channel public launch was postponed to September, the last month of the third quarter.

What made consumers even more angry was that the product was promoted at a price of 2,499 yuan during the pre-sale period, but the price increased to 3,299 yuan when it was officially launched, a increase of 800 yuan.

"The most likely reason for the delayed delivery, launch, and product price increase is that there is a problem with the supply chain. It may be that the yield rate does not meet the standard, which has increased the cost, or that the company did not fully estimate its own supply chain integration ability," the aforementioned industry insider told Aotou Finance.

The current industry consensus is that smart glasses face an "impossible triangle", that is, it is difficult to balance performance, light weight, and battery life. Solving this problem requires manufacturers and the supply chain to work together. However, the sales volume of a single manufacturer is not enough to convince suppliers, so there is no way to break the "impossible triangle".

In addition to the immature supply chain, the industry also faces the problem of unclear development paths. Should the product develop into a high-performance smart hardware or an ecological carrier?

"In the former case, AI smart glasses lack a 'killer application'. The functions such as translation, navigation, taking photos, and recording videos currently provided by smart glasses can all be done by mobile phones, and smart glasses also perform worse than mature devices in terms of single functions. In the latter case, large manufacturers have more advantages in terms of ecosystem and scenarios. For example, Xiaomi glasses are part of its 'Vehicle-Home-Ecosystem Strategy', while small and medium-sized manufacturers such as Rokid can only rely on others," an industry analyst told Aotou Finance.

Indeed, in Rokid's previous publicity, features such as being equipped with the Tongyi Qianwen large model and the "Look and Pay" function in cooperation with Alipay were its selling points. However, when the Quark AI glasses were launched, functions from the Alibaba ecosystem such as the Tongyi Qianwen large model, Gaode Navigation, Alipay payment, and Taobao's Scan-to-Search became "basic features". Compared with Alibaba's "in-house product", Rokid's previously promoted ecological advantages will no longer be apparent.

In the eyes of the outside world, with the entry of large manufacturers, the leader in the domestic smart glasses market has not emerged yet, but the market will undergo a reshuffle. Past industry cases tell us that in a reshuffle, small and medium-sized manufacturers are often the first to leave the game.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Aotou Finance" (ID: theSankei), written by Zhang Feitao, and is reprinted by 36Kr with permission.