Drones, virtual reality and car tech drew the biggest audiences at the second Asian outing for the Consumer Electronics Show in Shanghai’s futuristic Pudong district. The show also highlighting the growing sophistication of domestic Chinese products and the powerful ambition of Chinese companies to become global brands.
Sometimes in a hall filled with the most advanced technology from the globe's biggest brains, where every second sentence you overhear is name-checking a mind-bending virtual reality unit, a sleek autonomous car or a particularly snazzy smartphone, it is the more mundane products that seem to really capture the imagination. One of the most popular products at CES Asia was Cowa Robot's first robotic suitcase.
This piece of luggage is able to sense owner's movement and follow them autonomously through a built-in Co-Eye Sensor System. China's rising middle class is obsessed with tech and travel, evidenced by the thousands of visitors to CES Asia at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre and Kerry Hotel.
The Cowa Robot tracks you via a bracelet you wear, presumably as you cross the concourse of your high-speed train station or shiny new airport – although it is not yet clear if the suitcase will be allowed on aircraft. Like a puppy, it registers its alarm if you wander more than 1.5 metres away and it can track you down within 50 metres if you get separated.
Tourism is booming in China – some 200 million Chinese are likely travel abroad each year by the end of the decade – and the Cowa case cleverly marries the twin obsessions of tech and travel.
China's consumer technology market is currently growing at about 3 per cent annually and was worth €239 billion in 2015, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the show's organisers, the Consumer Technology Association.
“The products we see on the show floor will move us more safely, keep us healthy, improve our agriculture, reduce hunger and connect, educate and entertain us,” he said.
CES Asia in Shanghai is still smaller than its Las Vegas counterpart but given the nature of expansion of Asia's tech industry, even as economies slow down, you know it is only a matter of time before it overtakes its parent.
Despite attempts to make everything bilingual, this is not really an international show, and it is very heavily skewed towards the Chinese market. With the rising middle class, it’s hard not to think that should be enough.
Drones were a big deal at the show. The Silicon Valley-headquartered Mota displayed the world's smallest and lightest drone, a paperclip-sized Jetjat Nano, which retails at about €45, weighs 113 grams and can fly up to 23 metres. It goes on sale on Amazon China later this year.
Garmin launched its Forerunner 735XT multisport watch, which went down well at the show and is designed specially for triathletes.
Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and senior director of research at the Consumer Technology Association, said the tech trends to watch during 2016 are autonomous vehicles and virtual reality.
“Virtual reality also is here to stay,” said DuBravac, with global sales expected to increase by 500 per cent in 2016 and then double in 2017. “This, coupled with the shifting mobile paradigm, will continue to blur both online and offline experiences, allowing for more daily activities to be engaged on the internet.”
What is noteworthy from the show is that the tag "Made in China" no longer has the stigma it used to. You could see this at the Beijing Auto Show this year, too, where Chinese tech firm LeEco showed a number of electric cars, including a joint project with Aston Martin on the RapidE, and co-operation with Faraday Future.
LeEco announced an advertising partnership with Twitter at the show as part of its efforts to reach a global audience – Twitter is banned in China itself – which will provide LeEco with access to First View, Twitter’s video-based advertising product.
This chimes with growing efforts by Chinese firms to go global. In May last year the government unveiled a plan called “Made-in-China 2025,” a 10-year plan to transform China from a manufacturing giant to a world manufacturing power with a focus on innovative, high-tech products. This is all due to take place by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Increasingly, as long as the product is high quality and the price is right, Chinese consumers seem prepared to go for the domestic brand.
In a recent report, consultants McKinsey & Co pointed out how foreign brands remain strong in the premium sector.
“With a few notable exceptions, such as Huawei’s growing share of the premium smartphone market, penetration by local companies in premium segments remains limited,” McKinsey said.
However, this contrasts with the mass segment of the market, where local brands are winning market share from foreign incumbents through a much stronger product proposition.
“Given this strong increase in the mass segment, local brands have been gaining share – a trend we anticipate will continue,” the consultants said.
The most successful of the Chinese brands has been Huawei, and it was a major presence at the CES Asia show.
Kevin Ho, president of handset product design, predicted a huge acceleration in technology development over the next 25 years, particularly in connectivity, personal technology and security.
“As computing power continues to increase, the digital world will learn from analytics and develop ubiquitous intelligence,” said Ho.
Huawei will be investing more in innovation; 45 per cent of its workforce is now focused on research and development and the Shenzhen-based company is working on the construction of ecosystems focused on the consumer experience, and looking at alliances and partnerships to achieve end-to-end solutions.
It is interesting to see how this is paying off. Just five years ago, 70 per cent of smartphone sales in China were from three foreign brands, Nokia, Samsung, and Apple, and the rest of the market was basically a smattering of small Chinese brands.
Now Huawei is China’s the mainland’s top handset brand, ousting Apple, and is Europe’s second-biggest and the world’s third-biggest smartphone brand.
Cars figure strongly at CES. This year’s show featured BMW’s iVision Future Interaction concept car, which has real-time route assist, auto driving and pick-up functions and can be connected to smart devices, was gathering the crowds. The car sells itself as a “complete mobility eco-system and possesses all the prerequisites for fully autonomous driving, or FAD”.
Also on display was the Mercedes-Benz Concept Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile (Concept IAA), a four-engine hybrid powered car, and the all-new E-Class L, which claims to be "one of the most intelligent" cars in the world.
Volvo was showing the C26, an autonomous concept car.
Some of these had already been seen at Las Vegas, as had a lot of what was on display in Shanghai, but this was a first opportunity for Chinese consumers to see it, which is kind of the point. This is a market hungry for information and for an opportunity to watch new tech in action.
