Research: Google third in smart speaker market
August 27, 2019
The global smart speaker market grew 55.4 per cent in Q2 to reach 26.1 million units, according to Canalys. Amazon continued to lead with 6.6 million units shipped. Google, however, fell to the third spot as China’s Baidu surged ahead. Baidu in Q2 grew 3,700 per cent to reach 4.5 million units, overtaking Google’s 4.3 million units shipped.
China’s market overall doubled to 12.6 million units, or more than twice the 6.1 million total in the US. The latter represents a slight (2.4 per cent) decline since the prior quarter.
Baidu’s growth in the quarter was attributed to aggressive marketing and go-to-market campaigns. It was particularly successful in terms of smart displays, which accounted for 45 per cent of the products it shipped.
“Local network operators’ interests on the [smart display] device category soared recently. This bodes well for Baidu as it faces little competition in the smart display category, allowing the company to dominate in the operator channel,” commented Canalys Research Analyst Cynthia Chen.