Tuya runs one of the largest IoT platforms in China and focuses on smart home and consumer oriented products with a global presence in over 200 countries. With over US$300 million in venture capital, the Hangzhou based company provides its 10,000+ customers a full suite of platform services to help its customers (mainly device manufacturers) quickly bring their products to market.
Tuya’s business model is to partner with chips providers and module makers to develop reference designs that can be easily integrated into devices that will be compatible with Tuya’s ecosystem of partners. Tuya supports a wide variety of technologies including Bluetooth, WiFi, mesh, GPRS and Zigbee — however, only Tuya modules can be used on the platform.
A few large appliance manufacturers in China leverage Tuya’s tech, including TCL and Changhong. Walmart, the Home Depot and AT&T are among its customers in the United States.
Tuya is processing 20 billion device requests and 6 million AI interactions daily, and supports 36 categories of devices.
Tuya has done an excellent job partnering with the industry by providing it with the tools and integrations needed for device manufacturers to get their products to market quickly around the world. Some of the more sophisticated manufacturers, that have their own technical resources, will often prefer to work directly with their own chip and module vendors. The platform, on the other hand, requires partners to purchase Tuya qualified chips and modules from its partner network to take advantage of its platform.
Similarly, for products that need deep customization, the Tuya model doesn’t work well. Nevertheless, for companies targeting China sectors that are light on resources, and/or are providing standardized products such as light bulbs, routers, security cameras, etc., Tuya can be an attractive partner. On the down side, for products outside of China its security and data management policies remain unclear, and you can find a number of negative reviews of Tuya Smart’s functionality and design on the Google and Apple app stores.
Nevertheless, Tuya has growing influence and is looking for more partners around the world that can bring added security, features and services to its platform. It is no small feat that it can boast Jeff Immelt as a member of its Global Strategic Committee!
Please let us know if you’d like to discuss the IoT market in China further!