Apple’s HomePod is continuing to gain traction in the smart speaker market, despite its significantly inflated retail price when compared with Google Home and Amazon Echo.
According to IDC, the smart home market (made up of speakers, cameras, monitors, and security products) is set to grow 26.9 per cent year-over-year in 2019, to 832.7 million shipments.
Data suggests that globally, there will be 144.3 million smart speaker shipments in 2019.
In a statement, Jitesh Ubrani, IDC research manager said 2019 would be about delivering cohesive experiences, based on top of the success of the smart speaker.
“2018 was all about getting products into consumers’ homes and both Amazon and Google excelled at this through low-cost smart speakers and multiple bundles across device categories. However, 2019 will be more about tying the various devices together to form a more cohesive experience and more importantly, layering in additional services. Though the smart home market will essentially be dominated by two companies, Amazon and Google, Apple is also expected to gain traction in the coming years. The existing popularity of iOS and macOS devices combined with the availability of Apple apps/services on non-Apple products will help the company slowly entice more consumers into their ecosystem while also attracting third parties to build compatible devices.”
The news comes at a time when Apple is expanding into new fields, changing its strategy from hardware to services.
Still, the company should consider HomePod a priority, with some suggesting that Apple will release a low-cost HomePod that can rival the Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home Mini, though nothing has been released or rumored to be in development so far.
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