Reporter Xu Jie, intern Li Xueyan
Since the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, online education companies have sought business transformation, and educational smart hardware has become one of the important development directions.
On the eve of the start of school in February 2023, the former leading K12 educational institutions continued to make efforts: Zuoyebang released a new AI learning table, equipped with a self-developed "smart learning" intelligent system; TAL's Xueersi launched AI lectures Robotics, its first learning machine, is also selling well online.
In order to compete for the gap in the market, online education giants have entered the market, investing time and money comparable to "second entrepreneurship".
However, the debate on whether educational smart hardware is the next "outlet" or "IQ tax" has never stopped.
So, does this market have the potential to become a new "wealth code"?
Throughout the development history of the industry, China's educational intelligent hardware has roughly experienced three stages of development.
They are the embryonic period from 2010 to 2013, the growth period from 2014 to 2019, and the diversified development period from 2020 to the present.
Since 2014, various entrepreneurial teams have successively developed a wide range of K12 educational hardware, such as VR/AR teaching equipment, intelligent robots, wearable devices, learning machines, translation pens, smart stylus, learning lamps, etc., to adapt to the needs of teachers. Assistant, student guide, online education, school contact, home tutoring and other functions and scenarios.
After entering the period of diversified development, manufacturers with different backgrounds have entered the market one after another, and non-disciplinary education has become the focus of competition.
Issues such as improving technological content, making up for manufacturing shortcomings, and easing parent-child tensions have become pain points for industry growth.
Before the implementation of the "double reduction" policy in 2021, mainstream suppliers of educational smart hardware include traditional educational hardware companies represented by Backgammon, Reading Lang, and You School, as well as new technology companies represented by HKUST Xunfei and Baidu.
With the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, educational intelligent hardware has become one of the important development directions of K12 education companies.
In 2021, several education brands under Yuanfudao will intensively launch educational intelligent hardware, including Zebra's logical thinking learning machine, Xiaoyuan Souti's A4 printer and other products.
In March 2022, Zuoyebang announced the launch of the Miaomiaoji electronic word card, further improving the intelligent hardware layout with the Miaomiaoji as the core.
"Educational hardware used to be regarded by online education companies as a low-cost traffic portal for customer acquisition. At that time, some early-stage companies had already reaped dividends through the deployment of smart hardware, such as the smart learning pioneered by ByteDance's Dali Education Lights, etc." Wu Taiwei, a senior investment consultant of Dong Hi-Tech, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that after the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, the role of hardware products is not limited to this, but shoulders the "vanguard" of the transformation of various enterprises. tasks, the future hardware business will have more room for imagination.
The demand for higher-priced educational hardware such as learning machines and learning tablets has increased sharply in my country.
Perhaps seeing the growth space of the learning machine, in February, Xueersi launched a learning machine priced at 5,000 yuan, which was enthusiastically received by parents.
On February 20, the reporter browsed at the Xueersi Tmall flagship store and found that since it went on sale on February 6, the sales volume of this learning machine has exceeded 2,000 units. Based on the list price, the income in half a month has exceeded 10 million yuan.
A TAL related person told the "Securities Daily" reporter: "At present, the learning machine mainly focuses on serving existing users well. After the product is launched, we continue to collect user feedback through multiple channels, and implement it one by one after internal technology and content demand assessment. Children and parents bring a better product experience."
Different from TAL, Jobbang entered the desk market and released the industry's first AI learning desk.
Meng Xiaoran, person in charge of the homework desk products, told the Securities Daily reporter: "From the perspective of the entire IoT field, AI big data can promote the transformation of the entire industry, and the same is true for the education industry. Just looking at the category of learning desks, the entire market should It is in the range of 13 billion to 15 billion yuan."
At present, with the rapid development of consumer electronics and the homogenization of hardware configuration, software and content have become important criteria for measuring the quality of educational smart hardware products.
"Hardware is essentially a channel business, and there is not much difference between brands. The core of hardware products lies in content and user stickiness. In other words, whether it has high-quality content may become the key to stand out in the future." Wu Taiwei told reporters.
According to the data of the homework help, 50% of the users choose the homework help AI study table because of the AI learning companion function, and 60% of the users use the AI learning companion function every day.
"This shows from the side that the demand for AI companion learning is very strong." Meng Xiaoran said that in order to vigorously promote the learning table, the homework group plans to set up an exclusive online live broadcast room, and obtain more offline through direct sales or franchises. market share.