Google delivered more Home speakers in the first quarter of 2018 than Amazon did from its Echo speakers. Smart speakers are on the rise, especially in China and South Korea. That claims analyst firm Canalys after research.
According to Canalys, worldwide shipments of smart speakers increased by 210 percent in the first quarter compared to last year, to 9 million units. The smart speaker market remains the fastest growing consumer electronics segment.
Google accounted for 3.2 million of the 9 million copies, while Amazon followed with 2.5 million Echo speakers delivered. It is the first time that the Home deliveries surpass those of the Echo. Canalys did not publish figures on the deliveries of products from third parties that have integrated the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. Apple delivered about 600,000 HomePod speakers in a month and a half, earlier research claimed.
The speakers are becoming popular in South Korea and China in particular. In China, Alibaba’s Tmall Genie speaker is particularly popular, but deliveries of Xiaomi’s Xiao AI are on the rise. The US is still the largest sales market with 4.1 million models delivered, but worldwide the country’s share in total deliveries has fallen to less than 50 percent. Figures about Europe are not known, but South Korea has overtaken the United Kingdom in terms of deliveries with 730,000 models delivered.