Stepping out of the niche circle, Ugreen has turned NAS into a data center that understands you better.
Text｜Skye
On October 26, the well-known tech blogger "He Classmate" released a series of videos titled "Half an Hour to Get You Started with NAS". In the ten-episode explanatory videos, the protagonist is an NAS from UGREEN Technology.
Interestingly, this machine, which looks like a computer host, seems simple but can be used in various ways - not only does it undertake the important task of storage in the home, but it can also act as a home data storage center, a file sharing server in the company, and so on...
With the rise of the streaming media format in recent years, the "expansion" of Internet applications, and the rapid growth of personal data, the NAS, a long-dormant blue ocean, has attracted the attention of enterprises such as UGREEN Technology. This has allowed NAS, which was originally only used in niche tracks such as enterprises and the geek circle, to gradually become popular among the C-end consumers and benefit the general public.
Zhang Qingsen, the founder of UGREEN Technology, once gave an example that happened to himself and is also a pain point that many people have experienced - when he took a large number of videos and photos with his mobile phone, the phone prompted that the memory was running out, so he had to delete a large number of memories; and when he really wanted to view these photos, he found it difficult to quickly and accurately find them in the messy photos.
"When storing, there is not enough space and the storage is messy; when using, it is difficult to find and it is annoying to search", which is a high-level summary of the current personal storage problems.
Centered around this pain point, the opportunity for the popularization of NAS products has already begun. Market survey data for 2024 shows that the global NAS market size has gradually increased from $5.6 billion in 2020 to $8.5 billion in 2023, and it is expected to reach $12 billion by 2027.
The NAS market cake is jointly made larger by many new players. Since 2020, the NAS track has been crowded, including traditional storage giants, mobile phone giants, Internet companies, and so on. With the strong technological benefits of many players including UGREEN, the players behind NAS have also fully enjoyed the dividends of product popularization.
When NAS Leaves the Niche Geek Circle
When NAS steps out of the niche, it is gradually penetrating into individual users, families, studios, and other groups.
It is worth noting that in the process of NAS's continuous deep cultivation, this category has already jumped out of the original passive "storage" concept and has transformed into a powerful intermediate station for smart home in the home scene, an entertainment center, or the central hub of the Internet in the school, as well as a powerful collaboration center for personal studios...
In the home scene, users often have a classic usage of NAS products - directly throwing all family photos, videos, and documents onto the platform with one click. However, this does not solve the pain point of "using" when it comes to personal storage mentioned earlier. For this reason, UGREEN's idea is to take one more step and make the NAS product a more "active" storage butler.
For example, through the built-in AI function, UGREEN's NAS will categorize similar photos by factors such as face and location, facilitating family members to quickly share and access them through multiple devices and cross-platforms. When home users throw a large amount of video resources into the NAS, UGREEN's NAS product will also automatically generate a film and television poster cover wall, making users feel like entering an exclusive home theater.
For entrepreneurial design studios including photographers, NAS has become a "middle platform" role, like a micro design and creation workstation. For example, to solve the problem of "storage", UGREEN's NAS product provides the ability of direct connection to the local area network, allowing the computer to be connected to the NAS, so that photographers can access the massive materials on the NAS as if they were accessing the local disk of the computer. The existence of NAS seems to have non-destructively expanded the computer storage space for photographers. When photographers finish the images for customers, they can directly share the results with the customers through NAS, without the customers having to make an extra trip or bring a USB drive.
As can be seen from the above, after leaving the niche geek circle, NAS is gradually becoming more playable and expandable. The general price of this category has also gradually dropped to the threshold of hundreds or thousands of yuan, making it possible to change from "trying something new" to "commonly used".
And all these are inseparable from the silent efforts of technology players including UGREEN in product strength. "Storage" is only the basic requirement for IoT devices in the era of the Internet of Everything, but to make the data stored well and used well and improve the product penetration rate, NAS manufacturers still have more behind-the-scenes work to do.
Preemptively Layout the NAS Incremental Market and Seize the Blue Ocean
In the 存量搏杀 in the technology industry, UGREEN, which has preemptively laid out the NAS track, has initially tasted the track dividend of the continuous growth of the new category, and NAS has become another important revenue point for UGREEN.
Since the launch of the first Nas product (namely UGREEN Private Cloud DH2000) in 2020, in just 4 years, the revenue of UGREEN's NAS business in 2023 is ten times that of the first product;
In the overseas market, UGREEN's NAS is also very popular. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), UGREEN showcased several UGREEN NAS products and officially launched on the overseas crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in March. According to UGREEN's statistics, the crowdfunding amount reached 6.67 million US dollars, ranking first in the crowdfunding amount of the NAS category. All these are inseparable from UGREEN's accumulation and innovation in NAS product strength.
In the NAS track, the two recognized key points are: safety and ease of use. In the previous public speech of Zhang Qingsen, the founder of UGREEN Technology, this is also the product concept that UGREEN has continuously adhered to for the past six years - safety determines whether users can fully trust and authorize NAS to take over all data, building the basic lifeline of the product; ease of use determines that the NAS product will not become a data island in subsequent use and has a stronger scene extensibility.
In terms of data security and privacy protection, UGREEN has been making comprehensive bets. For example, UGREEN's NAS private cloud product previously launched a newly self-developed UGOS Pro system. In this self-developed system, UGREEN has introduced multiple security protection mechanisms such as a security butler, IP intrusion protection, and file permission management.
With various security measures taken simultaneously, UGREEN's NAS products are providing users with more comprehensive security guarantees. Of course, these security efforts are not "self-entertainment" and have also been recognized by third parties.
It is understood that UGREEN NAS DXP series products have recently officially passed the TRUSTe authoritative certification, which is another important breakthrough after its products obtained the TÜV Süd ETSI EN 303 645 safety mark. These two security certifications are both known for their strict evaluation standards. However, the former focuses on the technical security of the product, while the latter focuses on the privacy protection ability.
Besides "safety", "ease of use" is also a necessary option for NAS products, and different manufacturers have different understandings of this. And UGREEN's interpretation of "ease of use" is - stable functions, smooth and easy-to-use system.
Looking back at any popular consumer electronic product in the past, it can be found that the secret to their popularity is that they do not create new cognitive thresholds, allowing users to seamlessly transfer their past familiar usage experience to a new platform.
For example, UGREEN's UGOS Pro system allows users to operate NAS with the logical thinking of using a common cloud disk. In terms of interaction, even though UGREEN's NAS products have many functions, the basic principle is to let users "see what they get". Even "novice" users who have never touched NAS can complete the settings and use of various functions by following the instructions on the interface. For users, the most intuitive usage experience is that using NAS is as smooth and natural as using a mobile phone.
The NAS product category is the culmination of storage technology and network connection technology. To seize the final victory, it tests whether manufacturers can maintain a continuous and firm investment during the category growth period.
In the past six years, UGREEN has invested intensive human and financial resources. According to the third-quarter report of UGREEN Technology (stock code: 301606), the R & D expenses during the reporting period reached 218 million yuan, an increase of 41.80% compared to the same period last year. As of October this year, the total number of the UGREEN NAS private cloud software team is nearly 300, of which the production and research technical personnel are as high as more than 240, accounting for more than 80% of the total. It is not difficult to see from the financial report data and personnel ratio that UGREEN attaches great importance to product research and development.
Recently, the UGREEN NAS product team carried out a comprehensive system response speed optimization for the UGOS Pro system, significantly improving the user experience and winning unanimous praise from users, also demonstrating the professionalism and strength of the product team from the side.
NAS has built a solid storage base for the Internet of Everything and will become a micro data center for individuals, families, and small and medium-sized companies in the future. But in the long run, NAS will also grow more possibilities from storage management.
In the future after its popularization, NAS may also become the entrance to the smart home or the core hub of various 细分场景. "Entrance", in the Internet entrepreneurship wave, is undoubtedly a word that attracts much capital attention. A hint can also be seen from the fact that major IoT manufacturers have been eyeing the NAS category in recent years.
And more importantly, in the current era of the continuous rise of end-side AI, NAS, as a category with both storage and computing capabilities and possessing a large amount of data, will also be one of the best carriers for carrying end-side AI Agent. In fact, this can also be glimpsed from the various gameplay of NAS products mentioned earlier by UGREEN.
Therefore, for UGREEN, focusing on promoting the development and innovation of NAS products may not be as simple as finding an additional growth point.