Published in IoT

Amazon smartspeaker sales down while Google grew

by on16 August 2018


Market grows in Q2 2018

According to strategy analytics data Google Home's smartspeakers group has grown in Q2 2018 while Amazon lost some of its Alexa technology driven market share.

In Q2 2017, Amazon held as much as 75.8 percent of the market but a year later it dropped to 41 percent thanks to Google’s growth. This still resulted in 4.8 million speakers sold in Q2 2018 compared to 2.9 million a year ago.

Google, now the number two player in smart speakers, grew from 16.1 percent market share in Q2 2017 to 27.6 percent in Q2 2018. Google sold 3.2 million smartspekers in Q2 2018 - a significant growth of 420 percent from the 600,000 it sold last Q2.

Alibaba is the runner up, with 800 000 smartspeakers shipped capturing seven percent of market share in Q2 2018, followed by Apple which sold 700 000 and gained 5.9 percent of the total market. The last significant name on the list is China based JD.com, which sold 300 000 and holds 2.2 percent of the market and everyone else sold 1.9 million amounting to 16.3 percent of the market.

Global Smart Speaker Market by Vendor Q2 2018

The smart speaker market grew from 3.9 million in Q2 2017 to 11.7 million in Q2 2018. Customers clearly recognize that there is a place in their homes for speakers that can understand what they are talking about and can play some music without the necessity to touch the device.

Smartspeakers with displays will likely grow further as they simply offer more functionality. Lenovo launched one of these smart display solutions powered by Android Things and Snapdragon 625 platform joining JBL and LG, which believe that this is the market to grown in the second half of 2018 and going forward. 

David Watkins, Director at Strategy Analytics said: “Amazon and Google accounted for a 69 percent share of global smart speaker shipments in Q2 2018 down from over 90 percent in Q2 2017. The drop is not only a reflection of growing competition in the smart speaker market but also Amazon and Google’s inability to break into the fast growing Chinese market that is dominated by local powerhouse brands such as Alibaba, JD.com and Baidu. China has the potential to be a hugely lucrative market for smart speakers and the voice assistant platforms that power them and Google’s recent $500 million strategic partnership with Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com is a sign that it is deadly serious about not missing the opportunity.”

Last modified on 16 August 2018
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