Cover from Oriental IC
The social way of the adult world is to “sweep it up”, and many children like to “touch one touch”. Those who used their parents to buy game consoles, learning machines, and repeaters when they were young are now being stalked by children to buy a brand phone watch.
A Shenzhen parent told the alphabet list that in order to find a child, he decided to buy a phone watch for the kindergarten children. The child specified a brand, although the price is much more expensive than other brands. “I don’t think it’s worth it. The price is too much to lie to the children. But there is no way. When the children watch the cartoons, they are bombarded with advertisements. Most of the students around them use a certain brand. Touch and add friends.”
A fifth-grade elementary school student, after losing one of his beloved brand phone watches, asked her mother to help me find a thing to look for. It says “Watches are important to me because there are many contacts for small partners.” “.
” Nearly half of the students in the class have a certain brand of telephone watches.” A third-grade elementary school teacher from the Haidian District Education and Training Institute in Beijing told the alphabet that most parents are willing to buy them, and they do not agree, “but After being grinded for a day, I finally agreed. “The students were excited when they mentioned the dating function of a brand phone watch. “I already have 44 friends,” said a third-grade elementary school student.
A brand is a smart watch brand under BBK. The latest Z6 released this year is priced at 1598 yuan, the price is no less than a smart phone. Regarding a certain brand, I know that there is a high praise from the netizen panzk. “I didn’t buy a brand for my son before, because this thing looks like the price is too low. I don’t want to pay the IQ tax!” /p>
This tone is as helpless as when parents bought a learning machine.
In the end, he compromised. He realized that a brand is actually a ticket to a closed dating community. “A certain brand is the first dating platform for primary school students. You can only add a brand with a certain brand of watches. Friends, in order to group chat, in order to praise, in order to send gold coins to friends, in order to run with friends, in order to enter a brand of friends.”
Children’s socialization is usually a blind spot for adults. The popularity of a brand of telephone watches has made this new continent appear in the public eye.
In the PC era, there were children’s social products. In 2011, Everloop, a children’s social networking site that covered music, social games, videos, photos, animations and UGC content, completed a round.New financing of $3.1 million, but it has since faded.
In early 2018, the social overlord Tencent launched a children’s version of QQ, which was installed on a children’s watch. QQ also added a special online status display function of “Children’s Watch Online” on the client.
There are a number of startups breaking into this emerging field. Some have been cut from pure software. For example, some startups have seen social apps in many ways in children’s watches. Different brands are not compatible, and independent social apps have been developed, targeting children aged 5-12. Hardware-cutting, such as children’s robots developed for children aged 3-12, with communication, dating, video learning, entertainment and other functions, both educational and social attributes.
From the current situation, in the children’s social track, smart watches are still smart hardware devices with high penetration rate, which is aimed at the parents’ need to contact the children in time. According to a report released by Aurora Big Data in May this year, the number of users of children’s smart watch apps grew rapidly from February to September 2018, and then stabilized. As of February 2019, the number of children’s smart watch apps reached 46.3 million, an increase of nearly 50% over the same period last year.
The market performance of telephone watches has caused some concern and discussion. A Weibo blogger with hundreds of thousands of fans wrote: “Everyone always feels that Tencent is powerful, QQ and WeChat have a high market share, and their status is unbreakable, but they Employees said: The whole day is full of enemies and wars, and the first two days will also discuss whether a brand phone watch will kill them.”
Tencent did not respond positively to this, but said that QQ is also involved in children’s watches. In July of this year, QQ announced that it has reached a cooperation with Qualcomm, and the children’s watch QQ will land on a variety of children’s watches equipped with the Qualcomm Xiaolong Wear platform. The product is newly created by the QQ team, which continues the core functions of QQ communication and social networking, providing children with one-click registration, scan code registration, audio and video calls, voice input, sending and receiving expressions, etc., and customized QQ social services after 10th. .
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A former employee Liu Peng, who had been promoted in a brand under the offline channel, told the alphabet list. In communication with users, he found that students prefer chat, sports, and point redemption. In an offline promotion, Liu Peng found that there were dozens of unread chat messages in a brand watch of a primary school student.
As in the adult world, the social form of children is changing for technology. This is also the reason for vigilance for companies with solid positions in the social arena – they need to advance the layout to a younger age to capture the child’s mind.
Zhao Lei, a former employee who worked for a brand mentioned in this article for many years, told the alphabet list that in the BBK Education Electronics Group, the revenue of the telephone watch division was quite different from that of the other division’s tutoring division. But last year, the two have been equally divided.
According to IDC China’s wearable device market quarterly tracking report, in the first quarter of 2019, BBK’s 14.48 million shipments ranked fourth among wearable device manufacturers, and shipments increased by 53.1% year-on-year. The 6.5% increase in the quarter to 7.4%. A BBK wearable device is a branded phone watch.
But in the second quarter, BBK did not perform as well in the first quarter. Shipments fell compared with the previous month, and market share decreased year-on-year. However, one variable is that a brand releases the new Z6 at the end of the second quarter.
Internet companies have long been eyeing this market. In October 2013, 360 released 360 child guards. The concept of a safety watch was first proposed. In 2015, the first watch of a brand was officially released.
Subsequently, Internet vendors such as Xiaomi and Huawei, Tencent, Sogou and other Internet vendors have joined the battle. In addition to being a profitable smart hardware, the children’s smart watch represents the mobile Internet portal that accurately hits the children’s market. “The phone watch is now more than just a product. Many companies make a phone watch. The more idea is to develop it into a platform, and then based on this platform to do more product extensions.” Zhao Lei said.
The Xiaomi Eco-chain Enterprise Xiaohai Technology CEO Fan Haitao said in an interview with 36kr that it is more important to children than the children’s watch itself. Intelligent hardware is just a carrier that can be cut into the field of children’s educational growth. A brand’s application open platform also advertised, “focus on a large number of high-quality student users, seamless distribution of vertical K12 people.”
Byte hopping also took a fancy to the children’s hardware business. In May this year, foreign media reported that byte hopping was developing a smart phone. According to sources interviewed by the Beijing News, what is being done is a children’s mobile phone. Mainly the company’s attempt in the field of education. No comments were made on byte jitter. However, in January, the byte hopping confirmed that the acquisition of the patent right of Hammer Technology will explore related businesses in the field of education.
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A smart watch with social features that really challenges QQ?
Zhao Lei analysis, at present, the main selling point of the telephone watch is still safe, social is only enhanced entertainment, no other features are safe and empty.
Even, too much entertainment will make parents give up buying because they are worried that their children will be addicted to it. The parent from Shenzhen told the alphabet list that the function is actually a bit complicated. As long as there is positioning and visual function, it is enough. “If you make the watch into a mobile phone-like entertainment product, then I will resolutely change the child. Drop it.”
The above teachers found during the summer vacation that the two students in the class used the same Nokia mobile phone, which stems from the common appeal of parents – one can not access the Internet, the entertainment function is very rare, can only be connectedThe smart device that makes a phone call, although this still can’t stop the children’s enthusiasm for smart products, “even if it is a stand-alone game of Tetris, they will not be tired.” The teacher lamented.
The core appeal of parents to buy a phone watch for their child is to prevent the child from being lost and to contact at any time. A brand’s add friend function has also been a security accessory. “To ensure security, the most important function is message communication,” said Zhao Lei. The original phone watch was designed in the direction of instant messaging, and every detail Design is the conclusion of product colleagues through external user research.
In his opinion, the possibility of a smart watch killing QQ is extremely low. “A certain brand of telephone watches, although they are also involved in social networking, have strong social attributes like QQ, but there is overlap in the field, and the size of the children’s market is still limited.”
But other brands of children’s phone watches have become wary of this, and the isolation of different brands of social systems will continue to widen the gap in brand sales. One of the main features of the 360 Children’s Watch S1 is the ability to use the QQ Dating System to break down platform barriers and to become friends with different brands of watches.
Another major reason for the huge size of the social impact of children’s phone watches is that there is an age segmentation of this product. As users age, their smart devices will naturally transition from child phone watches to smartphones, and the social products used will naturally transition from the social system of the phone watch to the usual QQ. Perhaps someone has been using a brand, but no one is using a brand forever.
Liu Peng said that in fact, the company has already realized this inside. “The products of previous generations are more suitable for younger children in terms of color and design. Some students in the fourth and fifth grades may feel too naive. Therefore, the latest products will be designed to avoid too naive.
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Although from the current situation, children’s smart watches are difficult to challenge QQ, but childrenOne of the reasons for the leading market share of a certain brand is that BBK has a very strong offline channel. This offline channel has been working hard for more than ten years, accumulating a group of very tenacious offline dealers and marketing teams. “This is something that Internet companies can’t match, and it’s a big reason why 360 is not a step by step.”
Step by step official website shows that at present, the company has more than 18,000 terminal sales outlets in various shopping malls, supermarkets, bookstores and communication franchise stores across the country, and has more than 400 4S service experience stores in major cities and provinces. Urban and rural areas at all levels.
In addition, Zhao Lei believes that the products of BBK’s past products are good, and there are also a group of very loyal BBK users, and this part of the users is the parents of students paying for a brand watch.
Every generation of children can’t escape Duan Yongping.
(According to the requirements of the interviewee, Zhao Lei, Liu Peng is a pseudonym)