Smart speakers have been selling a lot, especially the Google Home Mini that was one of the best selling smart speaker this previously holiday season.
According to NPR and Edison Research’s published findings, their study estimates that one in six Americans (16 percent) owns a smart speaker of some kind (via TechCrunch). If the study is precise, this is 128 percent higher than a year earlier. About 7 percent of Americans reportedly bought at least one beaker between Black Friday (November 24th) and end of 2017, and 4 percent of Americans bought their very first smart speaker.
What doesn’t come as a surprise is that Amazon still rules the market. The study indicated that 11 percent of Americans have one of Amazon’s Echo speakers (as does yours truly), while 4 percent have a Google Home of some kind in their homes. Now, buying a speaker is one thing and using it is another. It’s found that 66 percent of buyers plan to entertain others by streaming music, playing games or asking questions, while 64 percent anticipate using their speakers for smart home control.
It’s worth mentioning that these devices aren’t replacing others as you’d expect. 39 percent of owners said they’re using radio less often, and 34 percent say the same for smartphones, you also see significant impacts on TV (30 percent), PCs (26 percent), tablets (27 percent) and printed word (23 percent). In addition, 44 percent said they increased use of voice assistants on their phones. This leads us to believe that speakers are helping raise AI help on other platforms, which is what many companies like Google and Amazon have hoped for.
While this study does give us some indication of the market, take it with a gain of salt. The study is based on both a blind 1,010-person phone study and dives deeper into habits based on 806-person survey owners. Smart speakers are growing quickly into mainstream use in life for some people and gives us indication of how fast the speaker market is growing in terms of sales and usage.
