Smart door locks showing key potential

A niche market is developing for smart door locks in China, especially in certain county-level cities with detached houses.

Though over 80 percent of Chinese consumers have not used a smart door lock as yet, there is increased demand for such products, industry players said.

In particular, high-end smart locks, which differ from traditional mechanical locks, are smarter and more convenient in recognition and management, and they usually carry price tags of over 2,000 yuan ($281) each, market research firm Euromonitor International found.

Sales of smart locks in China reached 10.6 million units in the first half of this year, up 5.5 percent year-on-year. Given that the production volume in the second half is usually higher than that in the first half of the year, production and sales volumes are both expected to exceed 25 million sets for the whole year, according to an estimate by the China Daily Hardware Technology Development Center.

"The average price of smart door locks has declined as a result of price competition, while technologies being used in the products have become more advanced, leading to increased cost-effectiveness of smart lock products and higher acceptance by consumers," said Wu Qing, deputy director of the center.

"Chinese smart lock brands take a leading position in the global market. Most domestically made products are equipped with in-house screens of high-definition cat's-eye view and advanced identification technologies such as fingerprints, 3-D face recognition and iris recognition," Wu said.

The smart door lock industry, driven by multiple factors such as favorable policies, growing consumer acceptance, technological development, and growing market penetration, has maintained its growth momentum and remains a sunrise sector despite its small industry size, the center said.

The sector has witnessed a more evident industrial cluster effect, and the main production and sales areas of smart locks are centered in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province; and Zhongshan and Foshan of Guangdong province, among other places.

With improved support facilities, the supply chain has become more mature and stable. The development momentum of industrial clusters in Guangdong and Zhejiang has been particularly strong, the center said.

After experiencing rapid growth from 2015 to 2018, the smart door lock industry has entered a stage of stable growth. Sales of smart door locks in 2023 reached 22.3 million units in China, up 12.7 percent year-on-year, data from the center showed.

Hangzhou-based Desman (China) Machinery & Electronic Co Ltd in Zhejiang province has seen sales volumes of high-end smart door locks retain leading market share in China and abroad for three consecutive years, according to the center.

Desman operates more than 3,000 brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, and it opened some 800 new stores in the first eight months of this year. It plans to continuously expand its presence in smaller cities, besides strengthening online sales efforts.

In first and second-tier Chinese cities, the market reach of smart locks stands at 21.3 percent, while the figure is 16.5 percent for third and fourth-tier cities, thus indicating considerable growth potential for these products, Desman said.

The company has also expanded sales in Southeast Asian and Central Asian countries in the past few years. Since homes in Vietnam are similar to those in China, Desman said it has a certain market share in the country.

"This year, we are expanding in some new markets such as the United States. We have started the production of smart locks designed for some wooden doors commonly seen in Europe and the US. Those doors mainly require smaller locks, and many people can install the locks by themselves," said Zhu Zhiling, CEO of Desman.