U.S. Smart Speaker Market Shares, 2017: Amazon Leads, But Google Makes Headway

U.S. Smart Speaker Market Shares, 2017: Amazon Leads, But Google Makes Headway

This IDC study discusses the U.S. smart speaker market shares for 2017."The smart speaker market is very much in its early days," says Adam Wright, senior research analyst for IDC's Consumer Internet of Things research program. "Although Amazon has held a commanding lead in terms of market penetration for some time as a first mover in the market, Google is starting to make noticeable strides in closing the gap. Taken together, in 2017, Amazon and Google accounted for 96.5% of the total market in terms of shipments. However, new entrants like Sonos, Harman Kardon, and Ultimate Ears are starting to gain traction. As more consumers become aware of smart assistant (SA)–embedded speakers, the market will rapidly become less consolidated in any single device vendor and competition for the top spot will be fierce — especially since the smart speaker is emerging as the central gateway for consumers to interact with their broader ecosystem of smart home devices and services."