William Gallagher
Combined sales of different Amazon and Google devices exceeded HomePod mini figures in Q1 2022, yet Apple's device grew 29% year-over-year to become the top-selling smart speaker.
Apple share doubled in the smart speaker market during 2021 thanks to the HomePod mini, and now new figures show Apple's sole smart speaker is continuing to sell well in 2022.
According to Strategy Analytics, Apple sold just under 4.5 million of the HomePod miniHomePod mini during the first quarter of the year.
Google's Nest Hub and Amazon's Echo Show 8, were in second and third place, though Strategy Analytics does not quote sales figures for the other models.
It does list figures for overall smart speaker sales. When the combination of all Amazon and Google's various smart speakers is taken into account, Apple is then beaten to third place.
Source: Strategy AnalyticsOverall, Amazon sold 9.9 million smart speakers, topped by the second generation of its Echo Show 5, which accounted for 1.6 million devices. Google is second with an overall sales figure of 6.1 million, topped by an unspecified number of Nest Hub sales.
Apple was also able to make a dramatically greater growth in sales compared to the same time last year. The HomePod mini saw growth of 29.9%, where Google grew 6.6%, and Amazon only increased 1.5% YoY.
However, Strategy Analytics expects HomePod mini's growth to "slow significantly" in 2023, "as Apple exhausts opportunities to sell HomePods to its iPhone customer base."
Note that Apple's almost 30% growth in Q1 2022, is compared to Q1 2021, which was the last quarter that the original HomePod was on sale.
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4 Comments
That can't be, it's too expensive. Right?
I don't see this as surprising at all. It kind of follows the same market share pattern that Apple sees in other heavily contested markets like smartphones and personal computers, where Apple's limited number of offerings are very well received by Apple buyers and the rest of the market is stratified across multiple products from multiple vendors. It does indicate that Apple has captured the attention of its loyal customer base for this type of product, which is great because doing this usually amounts to a big win on the profitability.
I do wonder where the smart speaker market is headed, especially with the market saturation that Amazon has on the lower end devices. If I had to guess I'd say that smart speaker vendors will start to incorporate more ambient computing and home security related features into these devices and have less emphasis on music-only functionality, e.g., do more along the lines of Amazon's Guard features.