Once-dominant Retailer GOME to Expedite Growth of Smart Home Market

Technology, Financials, Automotive Author: Sirui Zhou Jul 30, 2019 09:30 PM (GMT+8)

GOME cooperates with China Telecom to build 5G Experience Hall. The company has educated Chinese consumers in using home appliances and could now contribute to the smart home market.

Photo by Stephan Bechert on Unsplash

GOME Electrical Appliances Holding (国美电器), the once-dominant retailer of consumer electronics and home appliance, cooperates with China Telecom to build 5G Experience Hall. 

According to the Beijing News, the Intelligent Experience Hall at one of GOME's Beijing Xibahe stores has achieved 5G signal coverage and is waiting for its August debut. GOME is reportedly to build more than 300 5G intelligent experience zones by the end of the year.

The Xibahe 5G Hall provides consumers with opportunities to experience smart home scenarios such as smart living rooms and smart kitchens. 

With a solid background of retail and its mature supply chain, GOME could drive the smart home supply and further educate Chinese consumers with smart home solutions as 5G develops. 

The development of GOME and Suning is with China's urbanization and real estate boom, wrote Li Feng (李丰), founding partner of FreesFund (峰瑞资本). In this background, GOME and Suning contributed a lot to the development of home appliance consumption. These large offline retailers have educated consumers so that they are well aware of the functions of appliances and electronics, paving the way for the subsequent online retailers like JD.com.

It was the 2000s and GOME was at its peak, who used to be China's most renowned appliance retailer. Along with its archrival Suning, GOME is the most important venue that home appliance brands targeted.

Though left behind by online retailers in the past few years, GOME has opened more than 2000 stores in over 400 cities by the end of 2018, with large-scale integrated flagship store providing experiential projects, which could help consumers to build the idea of 5G upgraded lifestyles in the future. 

So far, GOME has been cooperating with AI specialists Zhuiyi Technology(追一科技), CloudWalk Technology(云从科技) and iFlytek(科大讯飞), network and data center service provider 21Vianet Group (世纪互联), and integrator TSINGHUA UNIGROUP subsidiary Ziguang Xinhua(紫光新华). This collaboration aims to promote smart home scenarios. 

In R&D, GOME also formed a strategic alliance with Baidu, iFLYTEK and Viomi Technology (云米科技) to develop smart home appliances such as smart speakers, smart refrigerators and smart TV. 

 

Read more: Smart Home Market All the Rage But Key Questions Remain of Consumer Demand