(Yicai Global) July 8 -- Alibaba Group Holding's Tmall Genie was China’s bestselling smart speaker in May, accounting for over a third of the 3.1 million units that sold that month, according to a recent report.

Overall sales were up 30.9 percent from a year earlier and rose 2.2 percent from April to CNY660 million (USD94.1 million), according to tech industry research firm Beijing Runto Technology.

Tmall Genie is much more than a smart speaker, Ku Wei, general manager of the Tmall Genie business division, told Yicai Global. It has over 5,200 functions which cover a huge range of aspects including entertainment, education, games and health.

Tmall Genie can link to over 270 million devices from 1,100 brands to date, according to a May report by Alizila, the news hub for Alibaba. By the end of July, over 1.7 million mini apps run by the group’s mobile payments platform Alipay will be supported by Tmall Genie.

Hangzhou-based Alibaba plans to invest CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) in its artificial intelligence and internet of things ecosystem, according to the Alizila report. Soon it will be able to connect with hundreds of smart devices under the Alibaba brand 'Miaowu,' each of which has at least 10 million users.

The Benefits of IoT

The introduction of IoT products to massage machine maker Shenzhen Breo Technology’s product line greatly boosted sales. Sales almost tripled between June 1 and June 18 to reach CNY24.4 million (USD3.5 million), almost 70 percent of which were IoT products.

Introducing IoT devices was a critical decision for the company's future product research and development as well as customer profiling, Liu Zhihua, general manager of the firm’s e-commerce division, told Yicai Global.

The defect rate of our smart juicer has decreased to less than 0.5 percent since the firm’s co-cooperation with Tmall Genie, Liu Zezhong, general manager at Ningbo Greenis Home Appliances’ smart appliance department, told Yicai Global. Before that, the defect rate was about 1.7 percent. Over 6,000 products were sold between June 1 and June 18, much more than usual, he added.

Editors: Xu Wei, Kim Taylor