Apple HomePod preorders outpaced all other smartspeakers, except Amazon Echo Dot
Priced at $349, the Apple HomePod saw more pent-up demand at launch than virtually all of its competition, save for one budget-priced smartspeaker: Amazon's $50-and-under Echo Dot.
Day-one sales of HomePod were tracked by NPD, though no actual hard sales data was given. The research firm found that preorders for the HomePod were higher than all competing products, including the likes the Sonos One and Google Home Max.
The lone exception was the Amazon Echo Dot, which the online retailer has positioned as something of an impulse buy. The entry-level personal assistant sells for $49, but has been discounted to as little as $30 in various sales.
The Echo Dot targets a far different audience than Apple's forthcoming $349 HomePod. Apple, instead, has positioned the HomePod as a high-end speaker for music lovers, while Siri-driven personal assistant capabilities are a side benefit of the hardware.
NPD expects that Bluetooth headphones and wireless speakers will see double-digit growth by the end of 2018. The firm noted that Apple's AirPods were the top-selling headphone product by the end of 2017, based on both dollars and units.
Combining the Beats brand with AirPods gives Apple a whopping 44 percent of all dollar sales, not just wireless, in the headphone space. With HomePod targeting the high end of the speaker business, the company now looks to take a chunk out of existing players like Bose and Harman Kardon.
Apple is rumored to expand its non-Beats headphone lineup with a new wireless over-ear model said to arrive as soon as this year. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, Apple aims to deliver a product that boasts the convenience of AirPods, but with better acoustic qualities.
Day-one sales of HomePod were tracked by NPD, though no actual hard sales data was given. The research firm found that preorders for the HomePod were higher than all competing products, including the likes the Sonos One and Google Home Max.
The lone exception was the Amazon Echo Dot, which the online retailer has positioned as something of an impulse buy. The entry-level personal assistant sells for $49, but has been discounted to as little as $30 in various sales.
The Echo Dot targets a far different audience than Apple's forthcoming $349 HomePod. Apple, instead, has positioned the HomePod as a high-end speaker for music lovers, while Siri-driven personal assistant capabilities are a side benefit of the hardware.
NPD expects that Bluetooth headphones and wireless speakers will see double-digit growth by the end of 2018. The firm noted that Apple's AirPods were the top-selling headphone product by the end of 2017, based on both dollars and units.
Combining the Beats brand with AirPods gives Apple a whopping 44 percent of all dollar sales, not just wireless, in the headphone space. With HomePod targeting the high end of the speaker business, the company now looks to take a chunk out of existing players like Bose and Harman Kardon.
Apple is rumored to expand its non-Beats headphone lineup with a new wireless over-ear model said to arrive as soon as this year. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, Apple aims to deliver a product that boasts the convenience of AirPods, but with better acoustic qualities.
Comments
"Relative humidity of operating environment should be 5% to 90% noncondensing (the amount of water vapor present in air expressed as a percentage of the amount needed for saturation at the same temperature), which means it isn’t waterproof. And it’s better not to use Apple HomePod when you are taking shower".
This is a quote from Apple's website that I got from a different site...
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That said, I'll bet the Echo Dots are still great sellers for Amazon, with many households having multiples, but I'm thinking that Amazon would like to move some existing users to the Echo Plus and Show.
i think you can place in a bathroom if I remember correctly
Apple is VERY conservative in saying how resistant to various things a device is (for good reason, such as preventing people doing crazy stuff!).
If you use a bathroom fan and it is not a crap one, and yeah, you should, I don't really see the issue.
I usually take baths tough and they tend to not put as much humidity in the room so I'm OK (we have a private bathroom seperate from my "dirty" kids who take showers all the time ;-)
The homepod is good for what it is as we got one for the half price but it’s not earth shattering amazing change my life experience.