Smart speakers were one of many pleasing novelties in the last two years. The ability to control your house with voice is definitely something magical. For example, Amazon Echo, released in 2015, was immensely popular – 7 mill. items have been sold worldwide. Plus, this speaker has a serious contender – Google Home. So, what is the future for these smart-home devices?
The answer comes from a statistics report, made by the analytics agency VoiceLabs. According to the report, the smart speaker industry may see an even bigger boost this year. In 2016 there were around 9 million shipped devices but in 2017 this number will rise to 33 million. The majority of the market, which now belongs to Amazon Echo, will be taken by Google Home. For this gadget, analysts predict a significant improvement – from 6 to 25 million.
As we see, the smart-home device market is developing well. VoiceLabs analysts also say that different companies will choose different application segments for their smart speakers. If Amazon is likely to do well at commerce, Google will focus on web searching and providing answers to trivia questions. Besides, the market will soon see another big player – Microsoft. Their smart speaker is expected to excel at gaming and simple functions, like contacts, e-mail and calendar.
