According to the report, "The Chinese household smart router market in Q3, 2014," released by Analysys, the first three quarters of China's saw 586,796 units of smart routers sold. HiWiFi, MiWiFi and Modou ranked the top three with their market share respectively being 60.6%, 15.9% and 11.0%.
Analysysfound that the intelligent router market is still only in its initial stages. Nonetheless, current mainstream smart router brands are scrambling to expand their user base and improving their software. The main router system, Hiwifi OS, is attempting to gain a competitive edge by focusing on more casual users and also offering a space for innovation. MiWifi routers use a multi-screen system to build a router-based home internet platform. Modou routers introduced a Beta application in order to provide a space for developers. Additionally, they launched a number of lightweight smart devices to build an open intelligent ecosystem. Although smart routers have yet to become common household items, a race is emerging over who will be their major producer. Analysys argues that the current business model for routers is still stunting the smart router market.
It is difficult to cultivate large- scale user habitswith a still relatively small user base.
According to Analysys’sstatistics, nearly 1.12 million smart routers were sold in both Q2 and Q3 of 2014. It is challenging to predict the magnitude future mobile internet revenues from this limited market size. In order to increase their market share, smart router vendors should integrate their products into users’ software ecosystem. For instance, smart routers could combine the smart home with family entertainment options. The purpose of this combination would be to acclimate users to this new software platform. However, smart TVs are a similar platform for interactive entertainment systems so vendors should be wary of this particular approach. In any event, intimately combining smart routers with the functions of smart homes will cause users to grow accustomed to third party smart home devices. With this infrastructure of smart devices in place, vendors will see an increase in the market share of smart routers.
New devices needs to merge into the smart router software ecosystem single product idiosyncratic risk.
The smart router industry has many challenges on its plate because of its recent emergence into the market. The barriers to entry are high and include the cost of acclimating new users’ to the platform and the need for constant capital investment to sustain growth. Growth lays in fostering user dependence on new products compatible with the smart router ecosystem. As more users begin to operate in the smart router ecosystem, there will be a greater demand for products integrated with smart routers. And thus, there will be much greater security for the smart router market.