Seize Japan Smart Gas Meter Market Opportunities with Kiwi’s AIoT Solution/Service

Kiwi Technology (6699), which was registered in TWSE in October last year, is a world leader in AIoT equipment and network services provider. It has created a new experience of AIoT solution and platform services and commercialization started. In addition to the success last year, stepped into the IoT supply chain of Japan’s the largest retail customer, and HACCP is the first applied in the field of food hygiene and safe. In addition, it has also achieved outstanding business performance in smart agriculture with IIJ. This year, we are going all-out effort to seize the business opportunity of replacing Japanese smart gas meter, stepping into the field of smart meter.

The Institutional investors estimates that Kiwi Technology is committed to providing Internet of Things infrastructure (sensors, base stations, cloud platform services), solutions and cloud platform operation services with considerable technological threshold. The company has successfully stepped into some use cases of AIoT such as smart meters, smart retail, smart agriculture, smart building and other related industries, Kiwi has successfully entered the Japanese market for AIoT applications and be expected gradually bear fruit. It is estimated that Kiwi embraces a boom in AIoT business in the next year and after.

The reporter specially interviewed Chairman of Kiwi, Judy Lee, and talked about Kiwi technology’s IoT market vision and plan. The following is a summary of the interview:

[Question]: Kiwi Technology’s perspective on development of the IoT business in the Japanese market?

[Answer]: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in beginning of 2020, governments and companies have stronger IoT needs in the post-pandemic era of “ZERO TOUCH”. Japan is facing labor shortage due to the aging population and the declining birthrate. Digital transformation must be carried out more quickly, so there is a strong demand for the Internet of Things.

Japan is the 3rd largest IoT field market worldwide. The most key factor is the development strategy formulated by the Japanese government in recent years, especially the “i-Japan 2015 Strategy” in June 2015 to focus on IoT development, there are three major aspects of innovation, including sensors, networks, and cloud computing, are the main drivers of IoT.

[Question]: How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect Kiwi Technology’s IoT business?

[Answer]: The impact of COVID-19 has caused social and economic changes; however, after the epidemic, companies are actively thinking about accelerating the deployment of the IoT, which will be a huge benefit for Kiwi Technology to step into the IoT market. For example, smart gas meter use case, which is a cooperation between Kiwi Technology and IIJ (Japan tier MVNO). LPWAN LoRa technology and its’ solution can approach a cost saving of man power for meter reading. Kiwi is expected rapidly growth in revenue.

[Question]: What is the biggest competitive advantage of Kiwi Technology in the IoT industry? How to maximize the value of customers through platform integration SaaS?

[Answer]: Since the transformation and development of the IoT business in 2015, Kiwi Technology has a complete patent portfolio and provides one-stop services and solutions, It is an innovative business model. For example, there is a Japan retail customer, Fortune 500 company ranked in the top 100 Japanese retailers adopt Kiwi’s AIoT solutions to quickly solve their pain points and help customers implement smart temperature management systems (HACCP) in supermarkets all over Japan.

From the temperature data collection, equipment networking, and data management of freezing and refrigerator equipment in supermarkets, kitchens; customers can meet the strict regulatory requirements of HACCP of the Food Sanitation Law, and temperature must be continuously monitored and recorded. Kiwi Technology also conducts AI data analysis to help the industry better understand the operating status of refrigerator and freezing equipment and provide valuable AI data for preventive equipment maintenance.

[Question]: For smart meters, what are the real performance of use cases of Kiwi Technology?

[Answer]: In the field of smart metering, Kiwi Technology and IIJ jointly forced on one of Japan’s top three gas company to conduct smart remote meter reading services. The contract has been signed recently last week. It is expected that the installation and commercialization will begin from Q2 of 2021, and the replacement of smart gas meters will be fully launched by gas company. At the same time, business promotion and alliances with other gas companies will continue in the future.

According to data provided by Japanese gas companies, the manual meter reading cost is about US$6 per household per year. This expense is a high cost burden for gas companies. Since 2017, the Japanese government has strongly advocated the use of LPWAN technology for smart gas meter, to create a bi-directional communication system for labor cost saving.

In addition to selling and providing a complete AIoT hardware equipment, Kiwi Technology’s business model also provides SaaS cloud management service, a paid platform. This is an innovation business model that will provide Japanese gas companies with nearly It is the best choice under the business opportunity of 57 million gas meter users to replace gas meters. It is optimistically estimated that the replacement of smart meters will bring business opportunities to Kiwi Technology, and revenue and profit will grow steadily.

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