Can no parents escape the "learning machine"? | Paying to Win · Big Consumption
Author｜Chen Sizhu, Liu Yichen
Editor｜Zheng Huaizhou
"What learning machine products should parents of underachieving students buy for their children?"
"For students transitioning from primary to junior high school, can learning machines really enhance their grades?"
"Will prolonged screen time impact children's eyesight?"
On Xiaohongshu, there are over 240,000 discussions about learning machines.
Accompanied by parents' anxiety about "intensely promoting their children's education", while the shipments of digital products such as mobile phones and tablets are declining, the sales of learning machine products that cost several thousand yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan are increasing contrary to the trend.
In a store of iFLYTEK in Haidian District, an employee told 36Kr that for a learning machine product priced at around 8,000 yuan, in a store with good sales, at least 40 to 50 units are sold each month. The data of JD.com's Double Eleven also shows that in the "first stage" of the big promotion, the transaction volume of the learning machine category increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and the transaction volume of electronic education and e-paper book products increased by more than 50% year-on-year.
In the era of "Double Reduction", educational smart hardware has entered more and more families. Taking advantage of the east wind of AI, learning machine brands are also making profits quietly. The huge imagination space has attracted countless manufacturers to this future "hundred-billion" market.
01 Behind the Boom of "Learning Machines"
According to 36Kr's analysis, in addition to traditional hardware enterprises represented by BBK, the new players in this field mainly fall into two categories. They are education enterprises represented by Xueersi, Yuanfudao, and Zuoyebang; and technology enterprises represented by iFLYTEK and Xiaodu.
In terms of product forms, learning machines have also undergone fission. From the "learning tablet" that plays courses and has simple interactions, it has differentiated into two modes: "learning machine" and "learning and practice machine".
In short, the learning machine focuses more on course video content, while the learning and practice machine is more of a practice tool.
Data source: Lotu Technology, Taobao, JD.com, etc.; Compiled by 36Kr
In September 2021, in the lobby of a hotel in Beijing, Yuanfudao invited more than a dozen families to complete the initial test of the "Xiaoyuan Intelligent Practice Book".
"This'small-scale' interaction with consumers allowed Yuanfudao to clarify that the practice scene is the entry point for the intelligent hardware business, creating a new category of 'learning and practice machine'."
In May 2023, the Xiaoyuan Learning and Practice Machine was launched. According to the data of Lotu Technology, as of September 2024, the sales volume of this product has exceeded one million units. The success of the "learning and practice machine" has quickly attracted industry attention. At this time, Yuanfudao is not the only one eyeing the business of the learning and practice machine.
In August this year, Good Future, which has been exerting efforts in learning machine products, released the "Xueersi Learning and Practice Machine" with three modes: "learning and practicing", "learning", and "reading".
Zhao Puzheng, the head of intelligent learning at Xueersi, frankly told 36Kr, "The learning machine is equipped with the entire course system of Xueersi Peiyou, and the positioning of the learning and practice machine is synchronous practice. For the two products, different consumers have different solutions and can be used in combination."
The data statistics of Lotu Technology also show that Xueersi and Yuanfudao are fiercely competing in the learning tablet market.
In the third quarter of this year, in terms of the online sales volume of "Chinese Learning Tablets", Yuanfudao ranked second with a market share of 13.5%, and Xueersi followed closely with a market share of 11.9%. However, in terms of sales, Xueersi led with a share of 21.7%, ahead of Yuanfudao's 18.2%.
Figure: Market share and changes of the top 3 brands in the online market of Chinese learning tablets in Q3 2024; Data source: Lotu Technology
At the site of Good Future's second-quarter earnings report for the fiscal year 2025, Peng Zhuangzhuang, the company's president and chief financial officer, said that the development of the artificial intelligence learning device business has become one of the main drivers of revenue growth in this quarter.
For technology enterprises, the greater significance of laying out learning machines lies in the implementation of AI technology. Technology enterprises also urgently need to prove to the capital market the possibility of making profits through technological innovation.
In 2019, iFLYTEK released the industry's first learning machine product equipped with the "AI Precision Learning Mode". Since then, using AI technology to provide personalized content services for each learner has become an "essential skill" for the entire industry.
In May this year, the popularity of the combination of large models and learning machines suddenly exploded.
In this one-month period, Xiaodu implemented the Wenxin Large Model on the newly released learning machine Z30. Immediately after, Yuanfudao also disclosed the large model architecture; Youdao's Ziyu Education also upgraded the large model technology and announced six landing applications such as "LLM Translation" and "Virtual Oral English Coach".
02 Internal Competition, Educational Resources and Large Models
Judging from the current results, the learning machine or learning and practice machine products launched by education enterprises represented by Yuanfudao and Good Future still excel in content.
In the past year, the number of textbook versions carried by the Xiaoyuan Learning and Practice Machine has expanded from 46 to 159, and the question bank resources have increased to 1.5 billion. Xueersi has also collaborated with "5·3" and Wanwei to incorporate resources such as Dianzhongdian and Huanggang Xiaoyuanzi into the product, with the test paper resources reaching 1 million sets.
In Zhao Puzheng's view, the near-term future of the industry is still good content. Whether it is a learning machine or a learning and practice machine, the educational resources carried are the real reason for users to purchase. The learning machine products launched by education enterprises have also changed from competing in content to competing in the "hardware" itself.
In a 996 working environment, the direct reason for people to buy learning machines is that they cannot always supervise their children to develop good study habits. Parents are also very worried that prolonged use will lead to a decline in children's eyesight.
Yuanfudao always believes that protecting children's eye health is as important as learning. The "e-ink screen" has the advantage of not adding a burden to children's eyesight, making it the screen choice for its first intelligent hardware.
Wang Xiangdong, vice president of Yuanfudao Group, said that self-research can better improve the product experience, and at the same time, the AI technology accumulated by Yuanfudao in the past 12 years can be incorporated into new products to build a moat. The Xiaoyuan Learning and Practice Machine has almost built a self-research team for hardware from scratch.
Unlike Yuanfudao's self-research path, Xueersi chose to cooperate with China Star Optoelectronics and Hanvon Ugee to launch a "color paper-like screen" with the same eye-protection function.
Some industry insiders also revealed to 36Kr that most learning machine manufacturers are still in the stage of "anti-blue light and anti-glare" in terms of eye protection. "Some e-ink screen products still have blue light when the backlight is on."
In a previous report by Guangming Online, whether it is an e-ink screen or a paper-like screen, it can only alleviate eye fatigue. To truly prevent myopia, it is still necessary to reduce the use of electronic screens.
Of course, whether it is a learning machine or a learning and practice machine, the core selling point is not the eye-protection effect. What parents always focus on is whether the product can bring the actual benefit of improving grades.
"Learning effect = Learning content + Learning interest + Learning habit."
In the perception of Liu Yue, general manager of Xiaodu's education business line, the learning machine products on the market do not pay much attention to learning interest and habits. The emergence of large models can make the products more focused on learning interest and habits. "This is also the core of Xiaodu's product iteration."
It is worth noting that while technology enterprises are stepping up their efforts in the learning machine business, players from the education industry are also polishing their own large model products.
It is reported that Yuanfudao is the earliest education company to establish an AI laboratory. In May this year, its self-developed vertical large model has been officially filed and applied to all products.
Wang Xiangdong said that currently, large models can play a significant advantage in the personalized field. Zhao Puzheng also said that Xueersi's focus on the application of AI technology is still the deep integration with content. Xueersi believes that only self-developed content can achieve the structuring of data.
03 How Far Is It from an "AI Tutor"?
"What will be disrupted by AI is not education itself, but systems and technologies, similar to SaaS software."
Not long ago, in an interview with Tencent News, Chen Xiangdong, CEO of Gaotu Group, said this.
The generally accepted view in the industry is that the professional barriers of educational content and the stability of hardware are the near-term prospects for the development of learning machines and even the entire educational hardware industry. But the long-term prospect of the industry must be the technological application in the context of large models.
In Liu Yue's summary, the combination of large models and education can be divided into three stages.
The first stage is limited to practical tools. That is, using large model technology to achieve functions such as oral English practice, composition correction, and knowledge Q&A.
After entering 2024, some enterprises have begun to enter the second stage, that is, to achieve more interaction scenarios through large models. The third stage is the ultimate form of the combination of large models and education, that is, to become an "anthropomorphic AI teacher".
At present, the educational hardware industry has a consensus on the product trend of "AI tutors".
The Z30 learning machine launched by Xiaodu is equipped with the "AI Teacher" function of multi-modal interaction. The learning machine T20 product launched by iFLYTEK also has the "AI 1-on-1 Tutoring and Answering Function", which can achieve the whole-process interaction of AI 1-on-1 in the tutoring of specific subjects.
"For example, the composition topic is 'My Plant Friend'. Each child wants to write about a different plant. After the large model communicates with him, a mind map will be formed, and the composition will be corrected after the child finishes writing."
It should be particularly noted that the underlying principle of large models is still based on the understanding of text, but the logic of data is not on the surface of the text. This also leads to the relatively weak effect of learning machines in the learning and tutoring of complex science and engineering subjects.
In addition, an old topic is that the investment of enterprises in technologies such as hardware and large models makes the cost "remain high" for a certain period.
In the first half of 2024, iFLYTEK suffered losses, due to the new investment in the research and development of large models and core technologies, and capacity layout. Good Future also stated at the latest earnings conference that due to the investment in costs such as product research and development and sales expenses, its intelligent learning machine business is still in a loss-making state.
So in the future, what kind of growth trend will the entire learning machine industry present?
Picture source: iiMedia Research
Zhao Puzheng believes that the learning machine has the market potential of "one for every family". In Wang Xiangdong's prediction, in the next three years, the entire learning tablet market is expected to reach an annual sales volume of 10 million units. The data of iiMedia Research also shows that in 2025, the overall scale of the Chinese educational smart hardware market will exceed 100 billion yuan.
However, the Duojing Education Research Institute also pointed out that the problems in the educational smart hardware industry are more significant, and the industry standard has not yet been unified. This also leads to a large number of products that can only focus on a single scene or are difficult to form a scale effect.
It is certain that the learning machine is not yet a necessary product for family education.
The core of education lies in "nurturing", which is more about teaching by word and example, and the integration of a person, a group of people and the social environment. It is difficult to solve all problems through a single product or solution.
Yao Yufei, the founding partner of Duojing Capital, also told 36Kr that the learning machine has certain requirements for the children's own learning quality.
"These products can basically meet the needs of students with above-average grades or strong learning abilities, while for students with relatively weak abilities and in the middle and lower levels, human intervention or supervision is still needed."
This also means that whether learning machines or learning and practice machines can really meet the market demand remains to be verified by time.
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