Roger Fingas
Apple and the HomePod remain a marginal factor in the global smartspeaker market, not even in the top five brands, according to new research estimates.
The company fell into an "others" category reserved for companies outside the top five brands during the March quarter, which in total saw just 2.9 million shipments, Canalys said in a Monday report. The top five identified vendors were Amazon, Google, Baidu/Xiaodu, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.
Holding onto its lead, Amazon was up 84.7% year-over-year to 4.6 million units. Google grew 7% to 3.5 million. Chinese makers were on the march though, with Alibaba up 204.3% to 3.2 million, and Xiaomi rocketing 411.4% to 3.2 million. Baidu/Xiaodu speakers are less than a year old.
Canalys did not disclose figures for Apple in the report, instead choosing to discuss the other vendors in the list and the market as a whole.
Since its launch in February 2018, Apple has marketed the HomePod foremost as high-end audio, almost downplaying its Siri and HomeKit integrations. The product has likely been held back by its price tag — though Apple has permanently lowered the price from $349 to $299, that still makes it far more expensive than Amazon and Google's entry-level speakers, which start at around $49. Even a bundle of two Amazon Echo speakers and the Echo Sub is $50 less than a single HomePod.
Apple has periodically been rumored as working on a lower-cost HomePod, but that talk has largely quietened down.
Another obstacle may be a lack of third-party integrations. There are far fewer HomeKit accessories than ones compatible with Amazon Alexa, and the only music service with full Siri integration is Apple Music — leaving out world leader Spotify, as well as smaller regional players like Deezer and Pandora.
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49 Comments
Still love mine! Sound quality compared to any of the other offerings at this price or below just not as good, IMO.
Siri killed it.
It’s not a hardware problem, Apple’s superior in that regard.
The question is: How do you develop a superior AI without customer data?
... Who’s asking the question? Why? How? Where? ... kind of important.
Smart speakers are more than just about playing music...
The sound quality is great, but even at £279 still really expensive compared to other offerings, and Siri is crap. I don't buy the privacy = no customer data line, as Apple uses differential privacy to allow them to gather anonymous data. There's just so many basic things Siri can't do: "I can't do that on HomePod" is quite possibly the most common line uttered by my HomePod - I'm surprised every time it does something right. That's not a good experience for the £330 I originally paid for it.
Of course, it's a 'bit' player, it's digital! ;)