Roger Fingas
Roughly a third of people in the U.S. are interested in Apple's Siri-based HomePod, though they're more likely to buy an Amazon Echo in practice, survey results suggested on Wednesday.
Of 2,200 polled adults, 33 percent said they were interested in the HomePod, according to Morning Consult. That number dipped to 30 percent after people were shown a comparison with other smartspeakers, such as the Echo and Google Home.
Among people who already owned Apple products, pre-comparison interest was 45 percent, slipping to 40 percent afterward.
Within the overall survey group 17 percent said they were mostly like to buy an Echo, and 11 percent the cheaper Echo Dot. Only 9 percent said they would go for a HomePod, below the Google Home's 11 percent.
The HomePod did fare better among existing Apple owners at 17 percent, but still ranked below the Echo's 18 percent.
Price appears to be the main concern among shoppers, since 57 percent picked it as "very important" in a smartspeaker. The HomePod will cost $349 when it launches in December — by contrast, an Echo is currently $139.99, and an Echo Dot only $39.99, though the latter is meant to be hooked up to an external speaker.
51 percent of people said speaker quality was important, which may help Apple. The company has banked on that element in both marketing and design — the HomePod sports a woofer, seven tweeters, and technologies such as beamforming and automatic balancing with room acoustics.
A number of questions remain about the HomePod, such as how well it will work with third-party streaming services. So far it only appears to support Apple Music — which is missing from the Echo and Google Home, but the latter devices offer a choice of services such as Spotify, Pandora, and TuneIn.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
81 Comments
Betting we'll see pro and mini versions eventually to address different segments of the market.
"40% among people that already own apple products", That is huge! adds yet another revenue stream to their lineup.
The HomePod will be available around December, just in time for the holidays. That's a fairly long way off and yet they're already giving these cockamamie sales predictions. Apple will be doing Siri development up until that time so who knows what the full capabilities of the HomePod will be when it goes on sale. If people want to buy an Echo, then more power to them. I hear they sound like crap for playing back music, but maybe most people only care about Alexa's smarts instead of the sound quality. That's just fine. I'd rather have high quality speakers along with a smart assistant but that's just my choice.
More people are likely to buy Toyotas rather than Porsches, but I'd rather own the Porsche if I can afford one. I don't see why there's a need for comparison. Two companies with different approaches to a product is just fine. I'm willing to bet Apple makes profits from HomePods rather than Amazon's break-even from selling the Echo. The only thing that if I had a HomePod, I'd prefer it to work with either Pandora or Spotify. I suppose Apple wants consumers to only use AppleMusic but that seems rather limiting. Apple can do whatever it likes and let the consumer decide whether it's worth the cost. No one is putting a gun to a consumer's head to buy Apple products.
The comparison is always too simplistic.
1. If you care more about voice assistant capability then the cheaper option is of course an Echo or Google Home.
2. If audio quality is important then the HomePod is going to warrant additional looks because neither the Echo nor GH will amaze the music aficionado .
Not worries about the HomePod supporting just Apple Music. As long as it supports airplay then it's pretty easy to get other sources onto the HomePod.
Multi-room audio changes everything.
The only problem I see is if their an app that doesn't want to support Airplay and if that's the case your issue is when them ..not Apple.