Advanced Television

IDC: Google overtakes Amazon to lead EU smart home market

July 2, 2019

In the first quarter of this year, the smart home market in Europe grew 23.9 per cent, reaching 21.3 million units shipped to the region, according to data from International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker. Western Europe is responsible for 88.3 per cent of the region share, but Central and Eastern Europe had the biggest increase (31.2 per cent year over year).

Smart speakers grew 58.1 per cent to 3.35 million units shipped, accounting for 15.8 per cent of the market, making it the second largest product category. In this space, Google Home devices were responsible for 45.1 per cent of smart speakers shipped, opposed to 41.8 per cent from Amazon Echo devices.

Video entertainment devices, which include smart TVs and digital media adapters, shipped 12.7 million units in Q1 2019, increasing 11.2 per cent annually. Smart TVs are still the biggest product in this category.

The smart speaker category had its best first quarter of the year since launching in Europe. Even though Google Assistant reached the leadership in this category in Q1 2019, it is expected that Alexa will remain the number one voice assistant in 2019, only being surpassed by Google AI Platform in 2022.

“Google had a stellar quarter and was the clear winner in the first quarter, reaching an important milestone in Europe,” said Antonio Arantes, senior research analyst for Smart Home devices in Western Europe. “Google continues to expand to new countries and support new native languages at a faster pace than Amazon. This is also contributing to strengthening its position in voice assistant platforms. Google Assistant was present in 49.2 per cent of all smart speakers sold in Europe in the first quarter of 2019. Meanwhile, Amazon faced supply issues, with the Amazon Echo Dot being out of stock in some countries for several weeks, leaving space for Google Home products to grow.”

The smart home market is forecast to reach 107.8 million units in 2019, growing 21 per cent from the previous year, and to reach 183.9 million in 2023, with video entertainment and smart speakers being the two main categories in this space.

 

Categories: AI, Articles, Equipment, Markets, Research