The Shanghai Stock Exchange and the China Securities Index Co., Ltd. recently announced that they will officially launch the Shanghai and CSI Smart Home Index on September 17. The smart home industry has ushered in its explosive year in 2023. Appliance manufacturers and core component listed companies interviewed by the Securities Times reporter all indicated that while growth is evident this year, the incremental increase is relatively limited. To accelerate industry growth, further cost control, data sharing promotion, and deeper platform cooperation are needed.

Lao Zuo works for a luxury home decoration company. When asked about the smart home installation market this year, he replied, "It's okay, slow growth." Lao Zuo said that the current average selling price of a smart home system is 30,000-50,000 yuan, but it hasn't fully realized intelligence, and interoperability hasn't been achieved. "Many users only install smart sockets or a security system."

Industry development challenges haven't hindered the capital market's positive expectations for smart homes. It is understood that the smart home index covers smart home component application manufacturers, terminal equipment manufacturers, system integrators, network and content service providers, etc. The latest data shows that the sample stocks included in the Shanghai and CSI Smart Home Index include 100 and 33 listed companies respectively, with a total market capitalization of 440.8 billion yuan and 1.27 trillion yuan respectively.

As a sample stock company, Qingdao Haier has been involved in smart homes since 2000. Xiong Gengchao, general manager of Haier Smart Home Beijing Innovation Center, said that this year, the growth of intelligent home appliances is significantly better than that of overall solutions. "It can be said that there has been an exponential increase, which in turn has promoted a decrease in the cost of overall solutions." Haier launched the U+ smart home platform in March. In addition, appliance manufacturers such as Midea and TCL, and e-commerce companies such as JD.com are also promoting their own smart home platforms.

Compared with the bold layout of downstream manufacturers, upstream manufacturers of smart controllers, the "brains" of home appliances, are still somewhat cautious. Tuobang Co., Ltd. supplies goods to appliance manufacturers such as Haier and Gree. Chen Dijian, the securities representative, told the Securities Times reporter that in the first half of this year's smart home market, smart controllers mainly achieved single-unit intelligence in air conditioning and lighting control. While orders showed significant growth, shipments were small, and the incremental increase wasn't large.

"The company is conducting R&D on the interoperability of smart controllers and will also consider cooperating with internet companies, but it also depends on the market situation in the second half of the year." Chen Dijian said that technologically, the interoperability of controllers is achievable, but the problem is that downstream appliance manufacturers are unwilling to open data ports, and standardization is difficult to achieve. Pan Qizhuo, director of the research department of the International IoT Trade and Application Promotion Association, said that the current single-product intelligence of smart homes is still superficial. Smart homes should also integrate with building energy saving and smart communities to explore business models.