Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to invest US$1.4 billion to build ecosystem around its Tmall Genie smart speaker
- Despite a sharp drop in first-quarter sales because of the coronavirus pandemic, smart speaker shipments in China are projected to grow 9.8 per cent in 2020
- The top Chinese brands remain Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi, which make up more than 90 per cent of the country’s smart speaker market
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding will invest 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) this year to strengthen the artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (AIoT) ecosystem around its smart speaker Tmall Genie as Chinese technology companies bet billions on what is expected to be the next big thing after smartphones.
The investment aims to expand Tmall Genie’s AIoT ecosystem by integrating more content and services from Alibaba’s ecosystem, ranging from entertainment to health care, education and online shopping, according to a company statement on Wednesday. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
Under the initiative, mini-apps on payments platform Alipay can be integrated with Tmall Genie starting from July 1. Consumers can also watch Taobao Live – the live-streaming of merchant sales on Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace retail platform – through Tmall Genie’s screen.
In addition, the investment will see more AIoT technologies developed in-house, including an IoT operating system, edge computing, and visual and voice AI, the company said.
Tmall Genie will share its latest AIoT technologies, vertical market insights, product design skill sets as well as content and service capabilities with partners to co-develop intelligent products, such as refrigerators, robot vacuum cleaners and smart sportswear.