Chapter 274 Flowers blooming inside the wall are fragrant outside the wall, 300,000 units in five days! Lei Yijun: I want it too!
On June 25, Alexa smart speaker landed in the North American market.
The main online sales channels are Amazon and eBay, and the main offline sales channels are Best Buy and Walmart.
Previously, Wang Teng contacted several internet celebrities in the technology and digital circles on YouTube and Facebook to make product testing videos for Alexa.
They don’t have the largest number of fans, but their audience portrait is vertical enough and their influence among young audiences is very strong.
For example, Marques Brownlee, who will be the second most followed blogger in the technology category on YouTube with tens of millions of followers, has only more than 400,000 followers at the moment, but the Alexa smart speaker review video he released has received 740,000 views, more than 50,000 likes, and an interaction rate of 6.8% in just three days.
In the video, Marques introduced to the camera: "Hey, what's up guys! Today I will review a speaker product equipped with intelligent voice interaction engine technology. I will announce the R&D team of this product at the end of the video. You can guess which technology company it is made of."
Company names such as "Google", "Amazon", and "Microsoft" quickly floated across the barrage.
“Before using it, we need to download an app called Alexa from the app store. Yes, its design is inspired by Star Trek.
OK, after successful installation, add the device in the App, select the device type as Alexa smart speaker, confirm that the speaker enters the network configuration mode, and then enter the WiFi password to complete the connection. ”
Marques shook his head, completing the preparations with deftness.
It's clear that he had done in-depth research on how to use the Alexa smart speaker before filming the video.
"Alexa!" Marques yelled into thin air.
"Good morning, I'm Alexa, happy to serve you." The smart speaker on the desktop glowed green, and a warm and enthusiastic greeting came from the speaker.
"Play me a song called 'We Are Young'." Marques first demonstrated the music playback function.
When the Alexa smart speaker is connected to the Internet, it can instantly access music resources from Amazon Music and Spotify.
"Okay, we have found "We Are Young" by Fun. for you, please enjoy it!"
Three seconds later, Alexa replied.
It receives Marques' voice commands, uses the voice recognition system to convert the analog audio signals collected by the microphone into digital signals, processes and analyzes them through the TI OMAP 3630 chip, and then calls the music platform API interface to perform song playback operations.
As the music slowly sounded, a string of exclamations such as 'Oh my God', 'Oh my goodness' and 'Amazing' floated on the barrage.
In fact, Wang Teng was behind the barrage and the direction of the comments section.
Afterwards, Marques used the Alexa smart speaker to check weather and traffic conditions, set alarms, reminders and to-do lists, add items to Amazon shopping lists and place orders through voice commands, and so on.
The audience was amazed!
You have to know that although the beacon country in 2012 had the Siri voice assistant, it could only perform simple tasks such as making phone calls, booking restaurants or sending text messages.
The success rate of voice recognition is not high. When you ask it to play "Jay Chou's songs", it will understand it as "Jay Chou's songs".
The noise reduction technology is poor and voice commands cannot be accurately recognized in noisy environments.
Its multi-round conversation capability is weak. For example, if you ask it which restaurant is the best in New York, Siri can answer normally. But if you continue to ask it what the signature dish of this restaurant is, Siri will be confused.
There is no memory function for previous questions at all!
It’s called an intelligent voice assistant, but it’s no different from a mentally retarded person.
Google also launched a voice search function in 2011, but the underlying core principle was just speech recognition technology.
In terms of natural language processing, speech synthesis and algorithm models, it is still a long way behind the Alexa smart speaker.
"Alexa, turn off the lights!" Marques suddenly pointed at the light bulb above his head and gave the command again.
With a click, the lights turned off!
"Alexa, turn on the light!" Marques ordered with a smile.
For this test video, he deliberately replaced the light bulbs in the room with Philips Hue smart bulbs. After adding it to Alexa's device bar, he could use voice control.
"I heard that Alexa's manufacturers are actively expanding the categories of connected smart home appliances. I think it won't be long before we can use Alexa to control all the home appliances in the house."
"TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers, and even curtains and sweeping robots. Science fiction movies have become reality. This is a very cool AI product."
Marques put away his smile and stated seriously.
He paused and added: "In fact, letting Alexa play music, set alarms, send text messages, and book restaurants are just its basic functions, and Alexa's intelligent interactive experience is its real core."
"Alexa, I'm going to swim at 3pm."
“Have you prepared your swimsuit, swim cap, and swim goggles? Do you want me to help you find pool information or set a reminder for your trip?”
"No, recommend me a restaurant. I want to eat chicken pizza for lunch."
"Pizza Hut's chicken pizza has rich sauce and unique taste. It is 3.7 kilometers away from your address."
"Send me the location information..."
Marques and the Alexa smart speaker asked and answered questions, chatting about everything from nearby pizza shops to beautiful girls in New York, from popular YouTube videos to the general election in the second half of the year.
Alexa's responses are natural and fluent, and her language is extremely emotional. She can also accurately analyze the user's semantics in terms of understanding complex sentences, contextual relationships, and multi-round conversation logic.
Of course, Alexa's response speed is not fast enough, generally taking 2-3 seconds, which is mainly limited by the chip processing power, memory capacity, computing power allocation and the efficiency of the voice recognition model.
But in 2012, the performance of Alexa smart speakers still conquered ordinary users in the Beacon Country.
Finally, Marques asked seriously, "Will you destroy humanity?"
The video content stops abruptly!
The audience's scalps tingled, as if they were electrified! At the end, Marques added the product name and reminded that this smart speaker would be sold simultaneously on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart and eBay in a week.
Orange Technology Co. Ltd?
An unknown manufacturer!
But in the eyes of the audience, Marques' recommendations have always been rigorous and professional. Even if the Alexa smart speaker is a piece of crap, some people still want to try it.
This is the influence of internet celebrity bloggers.
There are many similar test videos on YouTube and Facebook. Some of them became popular, while others were ignored, but they took seven or eight days to ferment.
Whether in the technology circle or the digital circle, Alexa's fame is becoming more and more famous.
After all, with the gimmick of "the world's first artificial intelligence speaker", it's hard not to be popular.
What's more, Wang Teng did not skimp on marketing and promotion. Not only did he find foreign Internet celebrities to promote his product, he also placed picture or video ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google and Hulu.
On the first day of launch, total overseas sales reached 19,000 units!
On the second day of launch, total overseas sales reached 32,000 units!
On the third day of launch, total overseas sales reached 54,000 units!
It wasn't until Justin posted a photo on Facebook that the Alexa smart speaker unexpectedly appeared. Although only half of it was exposed, it was still discovered by sharp-eyed netizens.
Justin's smart speaker has exploded in sales on Amazon! On the fourth day of its launch, the total overseas sales reached 87,000 units!
There's no way around it. In 2012, Justin was at the peak of his popularity in North America, with over 43 million fans on Facebook, over 24 million fans on Twitter, and over 2.7 billion views on his YouTube videos.
"You also approached Justin Bieber? Why didn't I see this expense in the promotion plan?"
During the meeting, Chen Yansen looked at Wang Teng and asked.
"Boss, it's all coincidence! I don't have the extra promotional money to hire a celebrity."
Wang Teng chuckled and thought to himself: I am really lucky.
Whitewashing is so cool! As for finding a celebrity endorsement?
Neither Wang Teng nor Chen Yansen had ever considered it.
There is no other reason, mainly because the price-performance ratio is too low. In addition, the material cost of the Alexa smart speaker is high and the gross profit is low. It is not a high-gross-profit luxury product or cosmetics, so it can adopt a sales channel that combines online and offline sales.
"The domestic market was launched for 11 days, with a total sales of 89,000 units; the overseas market was launched for 4 days, with a total sales of 192,000 units. This can be regarded as a success outside the country."
Chen Yansen smiled faintly and glanced at the report.
Cumulative global sales volume reaches 281,000 units!
The total sales volume is 320 million! Compared with the sales data of Orange C2 and Orange D2, there is still a certain gap, but in Chen Yansen's eyes, Alexa smart speaker has already exceeded his expectations.
The overseas market is not sensitive to price and is more receptive to Alexa.
"Has Paramount got it done?" Then Chen Yansen turned to Ye Qiuping and asked.
"The commission rate is 8%. The sales channels are mainly Paramount official mall, cinema counters, authorized retailers and theme park stores. It is expected that the distribution preparation will be completed in early July."
Ye Qiuping nodded in response.
Zhou Chuangxi, Daniel, Yan Peng and others couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, with joy appearing on their faces.
The Alexa smart speaker cost nearly one billion in manpower, material and financial resources from system development to hardware design to online sales.
The large server cluster deployed by the artificial intelligence laboratory alone cost 400 million yuan, including supporting and maintenance costs.
In addition, there is a research and development team of more than 200 people, as well as hardware investment in deep algorithm training.
If the market response is mediocre, I am afraid that even R&D engineers including Zhou Chuangxi and Daniel will not be able to accept it, let alone Chen Yansen.
Good food is never too late!
If the product's performance is strong, the sales volume will not be low! Chen Yansen thought secretly.
After the Alexa smart speaker became popular in overseas markets, some people with a keen business sense immediately sent the appearance, function description, and parts disassembly diagram of the Alexa smart speaker to domestic factories, intending to replicate it one-to-one.
But the hardware designers at the domestic factory felt something was wrong the more they looked at it, and then they suddenly realized that this was the "Moss Smart Speaker"!
Except for the name and application ecosystem, the two products are exactly the same in other aspects.
After all this time, it turns out that Alexa and Moss smart speakers are the same product.
The "pirates" were confused when they heard the news. After figuring out that the core of the smart speaker product is the built-in voice assistant, they reluctantly gave up the idea of plagiarism.
The hardware is easy to solve, but the intelligent voice system cannot.
"Awesome! The Moss smart speaker has attracted 40 million US dollars in four days and has gained both fame and fortune!"
“The world’s first AI speaker, the same model as Justin, has attracted countless fans overseas!”
"The high-tech product that the man brought back from the Lighthouse Country was actually made in Shenzhen?"
Maybe it’s because Alexa smart speakers are selling like hot cakes on Amazon, or maybe it’s because of Justin’s star effect, it’s the last day of June.
Originally, the online sales of Moss smart speakers had dropped to an average of more than 5,000 units per day, but with the hype from self-media, it actually rose against the trend and sold 47,000 units a day.
It even exceeded the sales volume on the first day of the 618 launch! In the North American market, it broke the record of 100,000 units sold in a single day.
Chen Yansen accelerated the development of the smart speaker market two years ahead of schedule. Seeing this, Amazon, Google and Microsoft announced their entry into the smart speaker market.
Domestic companies such as iFlytek, Qiandu and Xiaomi are also jealous.
In just five days, the company has sold 60 million U.S. dollars overseas. Although the sales rate will drop sharply in the future, the sales volume will be at least 2 billion U.S. dollars in a year, including the European, American, Australian and South American markets. Who wouldn't be tempted? Lei Yijun immediately called Chen Yansen and asked tentatively: "Mr. Chen, is the technical patent of Orange Technology's voice interaction engine licensed to others?"
Research and development is so slow, how can it be as satisfying as eating ready-made products! "Mr. Lei, what are you thinking? The intelligent voice interaction engine is the core patent of Orange Technology, and its importance is several levels higher than Aurora OS." Chen Yansen decisively refused.
"Haha, just asking casually. Don't mind, Mr. Chen. The date for the 11th Internet Conference has been set. Will you attend, Mr. Chen?"
Lei Yijun smiled awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.
"I think I will go! But Mr. Lei, the technical patent of the intelligent voice interaction engine cannot be given to Xiaomi, but the patent of the speech analysis development platform can be licensed to Xiaomi for use."
Chen Yansen said with a smile.
It is difficult for Orange Technology alone to reduce the training costs of AI chips, computing power and big data. It can take the lead in software, but in the hardware field, the technical links involved are too many and too complicated.
Therefore, only by driving it with interests can the market be developed.
This is just like what he did in the food delivery and ride-hailing sectors: making money is the primary productive force.
"Language analysis development platform?"
Lei Yijun was slightly stunned. He didn't expect that the situation would take such a sudden turn within a few seconds.
With Chen Yansen's explanation, he quickly understood the difference between the voice interaction engine and the speech analysis development tool. The former is a product outcome, and the latter is a production toolkit.
The speech analysis development platform includes technical solutions such as speech recognition, natural language processing and speech generation. By simply inputting voice and text data for algorithm training, or accessing Qiandu's search API interface, you can develop a voice interaction product similar to Alexa.
Lei Yijun agreed without hesitation, and the two immediately discussed the licensing fees.
Chen Yansen already had a plan in mind and reported the established charging standards to the other party one by one.
After listening to a long list of charges, Lei Yijun showed hesitation on his face and thought to himself: This is too harsh.
(End of this chapter)
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