According to a report from earlier this month, it was suggested that Apple’s HomePod commanded about 6% of the US smart speaker market. Clearly this is less than ideal as it means that the rest of the market is dominated by pretty much the likes of Amazon and Google with their Echo and Google Home devices.
However it seems that the HomePod can’t really be considered a failure if the sales figures are accurate. According to a report from Strategy Analytics, it seems that Apple might have sold as many as 1.6 million units of the HomePod over the holiday season. This is said to represent a 45% growth, but unfortunately when looking at the sales figures of Amazon and Google, those numbers are miles ahead of what Apple achieved.
According to Strategy Analytics, they claim that Amazon sold about 13.7 million Echo devices over the holidays, while Google isn’t too far behind with about 11.5 million. It should be noted that Amazon and Google both have smaller and more affordable smart speakers, like the Echo Dot and the Google Home Mini. This is versus whose HomePod only comes in one model and is priced at $350.
Samsung is also expected to eventually enter the fray in the first half of 2019, although given how stiff the competition is, it will be interesting to see if the company’s Galaxy Home powered by Bixby will be enough to convince customers to hop on board.