Amazon took back the top seller title from Google in the smart speaker market in the third quarter this year, according to research firm Canalys.
Amazon took back the top seller title from Google in the smart speaker market in the third quarter this year, according to research firm Canalys.
Amazon sold 6.3 million Echo devices between July and September, while Google had 5.9 million Google Home speakers shipped. Google Home Mini was ranked the best-selling voice-enabled speaker in the second quarter of 2018, followed by Amazon’s Echo Dot, according to Strategy Analytics. The latest report showed Amazon Echo devices are back to be the best seller.
One of the main factors boosting the Echo sales was Amazon’s Prime Day, a discount festival hosted by the e-commerce giant. The discounted Echo devices successfully increased the sales.
Worldwide smart speaker shipment reached 19.7 million in the third quarter, growing 137% year-over-year, from 8.3 million a year ago.
“The fight for dominance between Amazon and Google not only helped the US grow 30%, but also influenced other key markets, such as the UK, Canada and Australia,” Canalys’ report says. The U.S. market leads the smart speaker sales with 8.3 million devices shipped, followed by China (5.8 million) and the UK (1 million).
The UK overtook South Korea to be ranked the third place with 1 million speaker shipments in the second quarter.
Canalys forecast the global smart speaker shipment will total of 75 million for 2018. The upcoming holiday season will boosts speaker sales for both Amazon and Google.
“To encourage adoption, vendors are also constantly building on the theme of home automation and IoT, to position smart speakers as central hubs. But they still face a key issue in lowering barriers to adoption, especially with compatible systems that need expert installation,” said Canalys Research Analyst Vincent Thielke, in a statement.
The Chinese market remains strong, with local players including Alibaba, Xiaomi and Baidu actively pushing for smart speaker sales. Alibaba leads the market with 2.2 million unit shipment with its Tmall Genie speaker.