中国科技巨头发力智能语音助手领域

Voice-controlled digital assistants across the globe appear to have been given a single order: “Proliferate!” — and nowhere are they scrabbling as fast to follow the procreation path pioneered by Amazon’s Echo smart home speaker than in China.

全球范围的语音数字助手似乎都被下达了同一个命令：“扩散!”在中国，语音助手争抢着仿效亚马逊(Amazon) Echo智能家庭音箱开创的扩散路径的速度是最快的。

Some 43m Chinese-made digital assistants were in place last year, according to the telecoms consultancy Ovum. Tech giant Alibaba is entering the fray; handset maker Xiaomi last month revealed a new smart speaker (at a bargain $45), not long after PC maker Lenovo launched its version of one.

电信业研究机构欧文(Ovum)的数据显示，去年投入使用的中国制造数字助手约为4300万台。科技巨头阿里巴巴(Alibaba)正进入这个领域;手机厂商小米(Xiaomi)上月推出了一款新的智能音箱(价格仅为45美元)，不久前个人电脑(PC)制造商联想(Lenovo)也亮相了自己的智能音箱。

“The world is going to be populated with [such] devices. People are going to make a lot of hardware,” said one player. “There’s going to be tech companies that serve hundreds of millions of consumers.”

“世界将充满这类设备。人们将生产大量的硬件，”一家业内公司说，“世界上将出现为数亿消费者服务的科技公司。”

Digital assistants are the latest ploy by tech companies to pull consumers into their ecosystems and keep them there longer — making calls, shopping, listening to music or navigation.

数字助手是科技公司把消费者拉入自己的生态系统、让他们逗留更长时间——打电话、购物、听音乐或导航——的最新手段。

It is early days for the Chinese players, but most have begun with their own product offerings — so JD.com’s assistant can be used to shop on its ecommerce platform — and additional skills, such as weather forecasts, can be acquired.

中国公司现在还处于早期阶段，但多数已从自己的现有产品服务着手——比如京东(JD.com)的家庭助手可以用来在京东平台上购物——并可以实现更多功能，比如天气预报。

China benefits from being virgin territory, says Radio Free Mobile analyst Richard Windsor. Foreign competition is almost non-existent, partly a result of protected markets and also a function of language capability, given China is home to hundreds of dialects.

Radio Free Mobile的分析师理查德•温莎(Richard Windsor)表示，中国受益于处女地的地位。这里几乎不存在外来竞争，原因既在于市场受保护，也在于中国的语言(中国有上百种方言)。

Yet analysts are divided on how receptive China will prove to be to digital assistants. Mr Windsor says that Chinese predominantly access services through their mobiles: so while a digital assistant at home beats the PC and web browser more common in developed markets, it offers less of an advantage over the smartphone in your pocket.

但分析师们对于中国未来对数字助手的接受度有多大存在分歧。温莎表示，中国人主要通过手机使用各种服务;因此，尽管家中的数字助手胜过在发达市场更常用的PC和浏览器，但它的优势不如口袋中的智能手机大。

Despite this, surveys show that usage is far higher in China than in the US or UK, says Ronan de Renesse, who leads the consumer tech practice at Ovum.

尽管如此，欧文公司负责消费者科技业务的罗南•德雷内塞(Ronan de Renesse)说，调查显示，数字助手在中国的使用远远多于英美。

The winners, according to Chwee Chua, an analyst covering big data analytics and cognitive AI at consultancy IDC in Singapore, will be those who have been around longest and boast the most data. “To develop that capability, it’s all about the data. The more you have, the better you can train.”

咨询公司IDC驻新加坡负责大数据分析和认知性人工智能(AI)的分析师Chwee Chua表示，获胜者将是那些开展业务时间最长、拥有最多数据的公司。“要开发这种能力，全靠数据。你掌握的数据越多，就能训练出越强的能力。”

In China, the data sent back from listening smart devices can be especially useful. Those in the English-speaking world are largely mono or bilingual. In China, where there are well over a hundred different languages and dialects — along with cultural references, sports heroes and culinary specialities and a host of other cultural foibles — platforms have more to learn.

在中国，语音智能设备传回的数据可能尤其有价值。在讲英语的国家，这些设备主要是单语版或双语版。在中国，平台需要学习的内容更多，因为这里有远高于100种的语言和方言，以及各种文化参照、体育英雄和菜系，还有其他诸多文化癖好。

This factor, analysts reckon, could play to the strengths of Tencent, the social media giant, and its Xiaowei voice assistant. Not only does it own the wildly popular WeChat messaging app, with more than 900m users, but Chinese often dictate rather than write their texts — partly because characters are time-consuming to write.

分析师们认为，这一因素可能有利于社交媒体巨头腾讯(Tencent)及其小微(Xiaowei)语音助手发挥长处。原因除了腾讯拥有非常流行的微信(WeChat)通信应用(用户数高于9亿)，还有中国人经常是口述而不是手写消息——部分因为汉字书写很耗时。

Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, adds that the real value for Chinese customers — who are comfortable doing searches and similar tasks on their phones — is third-party offerings: ordering meals, booking flights and calling taxis. “But that would take quite some time . . . because it takes a lot of training and data to get the machine up to speed and to understand customers,” she says.

高德纳(Gartner)研究总监沈哲怡(Sandy Shen)补充说，对于喜欢在手机上进行搜索或者类似任务的中国消费者而言，真正有价值的是第三方服务：订餐、预订航班和叫车。“但这将需要相当长时间……因为需要大量的训练和数据来让机器进入状态并理解客户，”她说。

Stalwart smart speakers of the industry include Baidu’s Xiaoyu Zaijia, which had a screen predating Amazon’s Echo Show, and JD.com’s DingDong speaker, launched two and a half years ago by the ecommerce group and commanding an 80 per cent market share, according to Canalysis.

业内现有的中坚智能语音助手包括百度(Baidu)的“小鱼在家”——搭载的触摸屏早于亚马逊的Echo Show——以及京东两年半前推出的智能音箱“叮咚”。根据Canalysis的数据，“叮咚”智能音响占据了80%的市场份额。

Like Xiaomi, whose speaker links up to its smart home appliances, DingDong talks to 100 brands that have smart devices, so can take orders to switch on lights or cook two cups of rice.

像小米的智能音箱能连接该品牌旗下的智能家电一样，“叮咚”可以与100个智能设备品牌互动，因此可以接收开灯或煮两碗米饭的命令。

What is clear, however, is that profitability will be in shorter supply than devices. “In most cases, there is no revenue generation directly from digital assistants,” says Mr de Renesse. “It’s just a new user interface . . . and will only facilitate online purchases of goods, services and content.”

然而，显而易见的是，语音助手的盈利性将没有它们可连接的设备丰富。“多数情况下，数字助手无法直接创收，”德雷内塞说，“它只是一个新的用户界面……而且只会使在线购买商品、服务和内容更加便利。”

Worse, he argues, the smart speakers could wipe out existing sources of revenue by diverting users away from ad-bearing screens. “If tomorrow everyone did searches by voice, what would that mean for the digital [ad] display market?” he asks.

他表示，更糟糕的是，智能语音助手可以让用户不必再盯着看带有广告的屏幕，从而切断现有的收入来源。“如果明天每个人都用语音搜索，这对数字(广告)显示市场意味着什么?”他问道。

“You could look at it in two ways. Digital assistants could be cannibalising or negating revenues.”

“你可以看看正反两面。数字助手可能正在冲击或截断收入。”

As such, he views the plethora of devices as a means of protecting business lines and keeping consumers within the company’s ecosystem, much as Apple hardware encourages use of iTunes and other services.

因此，他将设备的泛滥视为一种保护业务线、将消费者保留在公司生态系统中的手段，就像苹果的硬件鼓励使用iTunes及其他服务一样。

Analysts also note that as a regionalised business — unlike, say, smartphones — China’s voice-controlled digital assistants are difficult to scale. “The only one that is truly global today is [Apple’s] Siri,” says Mr de Renesse.

分析师还指出，与智能手机不同的是，作为一种地域化的业务，中国的语音数字助手很难形成规模。“现在唯一真正全球化的是(苹果的)Siri，”德雷内塞说。

This means many speakers will fall silent among the Chinese ranks of wannabes. “You will see massive consolidation because you need size to keep developing the technology,” says Mr Chua.

这意味着，中国的众多模仿者中，许多智能音箱都将默默无声。Chwee Chua表示：“你将看到大规模的整合，因为需要规模来保持这一技术的研发。”