Smart Insights into Connected Appliances for Manufacturers and Retailers: Part II - Category Growth and Development Strategies

Infrastructure and government support are critical

Rising smartphone and internet penetration rates are critical in setting up the network infrastructure for connected appliances.

While the market is ready, manufacturers will need the support from government and industry associations in terms of standardisation to support the adoption of connected appliances.

China to lead global growth of connected appliances

Growing interest from Chinese manufacturers to invest in connected appliances for value gains, rising disposable incomes of Chinese households and support from internet retailers and government will drive adoption rates of connected appliances in China.

Connected appliances will generate significant impact to multiple industries

Growth of connected appliances will generate huge amounts of consumer data, which will boost the demand for consumer data analytics and market research.

With consumer data and insights, connected appliances will provide enormous growth opportunities to other industries including internet retailing, home care, packaged food, healthcare and others to offer remote services to users of connected appliances.

Price and tangible cost savings will be critical to mass adoption

Since cost savings and pricing are critical purchase criteria, clear communication of the tangible benefits of cost savings and right price premium commensurate with cost savings will drive global adoption.

Connected appliances will also bring consumers convenience in supporting families with elderly members or with dual-income households.

Air conditioners is perfect candidate for connected appliances

Air conditioners will have the highest adoption rate globally, as these devices have the highest energy consumption among all consumer appliances, and cost savings in electricity bills would be the most tangible to consumers.

In addition, the use cases including remote control, wearables control and weather monitoring etc. require little manual operation by users, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their lives, such as improving their quality of sleep.

Fridge freezers will post the most impact on businesses, despite challenges in technical development

At the moment, scanning technology is not mature enough to be extended to connected fridge freezers, as it would require food and beverage package coding to be embedded with food category information, expiration dates and nutritional facts.

Once successful in achieving coding and scanning the above useful data albeit challenging, connected fridge freezers will generate business opportunities in consumer data analytics, which in turn will benefit industries including retailing, packaged food and healthcare to serve connected fridge freezer users.

Unified platform and common standards will be mainstream

The technology complexity of connected appliances development is expected to increase sharply. Hence, cross-industry joint efforts will be critical.

Companies follow different development strategies, but they are encouraged to join a broader collaboration, since a unified platform and common standards are considered key to any success for inter-connectivity between appliances and devices.