Apple entered the smart speaker market quite late with the HomePod as there were many established competitors by then from the likes of Amazon. The company positioned its device as more of a premium audio device than an assistant-powered speaker like the Google Home but perhaps that hasn’t been enough to convince many customers to spend $349 on it. A new report claims that HomePod sales have not been up to Apple’s expectations.
Bloomberg reports that the HomePod isn’t selling as well as Apple might have hoped. Apple Store employees, sources close to suppliers, and industry analysts cited in the report point to multiple factors for slow sales which include a late entrance into the market, the relatively high price, and the limited artificial intelligence capabilities of Siri on the HomePod.
Some reports have suggested that Apple is now making more of an AI push to further improve Siri. This might result in improvements for the assistant on HomePod which some view as a high-priced accessory for the iPhone right now instead of a standalone device that can be considered as a bona fide competitor to other premium audio devices.
The $349 price tag of the HomePod is also blamed by some for slow sales of the device but it’s unlikely that Apple is going to reduce the price just to sell more units. That’s not a strategy that we see Apple rely on often.
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