Chinese tech giant Tencent has reportedly suspended the research and development of its smart speaker Tingting, the company’s first effort to tap the vertical. Tencent suspended the production of the gadget, but its sales and after-sales service will not be affected.
Launched in April last year, Tencent Tingting is a voice-based smart speaker, allowing users to access WeChat accounts and send or receive voice messages. The suspension of Tingting reveals the internal pains of the Chinese tech giant.
In a related business line, Tencent rolled out Alexa-like AI assistant service Jingle in 2017. The relationship between Tingting and Jingle was like that of Echo and Alexa, as well as HomePod and Siri. However, the balance was broken when Jingle released its hardware device in December last year.
:quality(90)/public/image/2018/8/26/profile_thepassage.jpg)
