As smart speaker users and potential buyers have more choices and brands, the Amazon Echo will lose its prominence as the go-to device, according to reports.
The Amazon Echo will get 63.3 percent of smart speaker users, and Google Home is expected to account for 31 percent. Other speakers, like the Apple HomePod and Sonos One, will get 12 percent. Also, Amazon’s piece of the pie will shrink while others grow.
Forecasting Analyst Jaimie Chung said new speakers now have technology that is comparable to the Echo, and that will make other models more attractive.
“Google has the Home Mini and Home Hub to compete with Amazon’s Echo Dot and Echo Show, and both the Apple HomePod and Facebook Portal will experience their first holiday season this year,” Chung said. “Amazon has remained relevant by plugging Alexa into premium speakers like the Sonos, but even Sonos plans to bring Google Assistant to its devices next year, keeping the two companies neck-and-neck in the voice assistant race.”
The use of smart speakers is projected to continue to rise. In 2019, 74.2 million people will use the smart devices, which is an increase of 15 percent from 2018. By the end of 2019, more than a quarter (26.8 percent) will use a smart speaker once a month.
Research also shows that most people use smart speakers for normal everyday functions like listening to music, checking the weather, listening to podcasts or the latest news and asking for traffic updates.
There’s plenty of room for growth in the shopping department, too, as only a small percentage of people who own smart speakers use them to make purchases – research shows that voice sales only account for 0.4 percent of U.S. eCommerce sales. That number is expected to rise, though, and 27 percent of smart speaker users in 2019 are expected to use them to make a purchase.
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