HomePod gains smart speaker marketshare in Q4, still lags far behind front runners
Apple posted strong HomePod sales for the fourth quarter of 2019, according to new statistics shared Thursday, but its sales growth rate trails that of other top players and the device's overall marketshare sits well behind frontrunners Amazon and Google.

According to the latest estimates from Strategy Analytics, Apple shipped 2.6 million HomePods in the last quarter of 2019 to capture a 4.7% slice of the global smart speaker market. The figure is up 65% from 1.6 million units shipped and a 4.1% marketshare in the year ago quarter.
Despite year-over-year growth, Apple remained in sixth place behind the likes of Amazon, Google and a cadre of Chinese companies.
Market leader Amazon shipped 15.8 million Echo devices to take a 28.3% share of the market, up from 13.7 million units in 2018. Google, which sells a range of speakers loaded with Google Home technology, shipped 13.9 million units for a 24.9% marketshare over the same period, up 20% year on year.
Both Amazon and Google saw their dominant position at the top of the segment erode as challengers Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi each enjoyed more fruitful per-quarter increases.
Baidu, for example, moved from 2.2 million units shipped in quarter four 2018 to 5.9 million units in 2019. The world's fifth-largest vendor, Xiaomi, saw similar growth from 1.8 million units to 4.7 million units over the same period. Alibaba, which sits between Baidu and Xiaomi in terms of marketshare, shipped 5.5 million units, up from 2.8 million units last year.
Apple notched the lowest uptick in sales on the year at 1 million devices, followed by Amazon's 2.1 million and Google's 2.4 million units. Baidu exhibited the largest change year-over-year with a 3.7 million unit bump and was trailed by Xiaomi's 2.9 million unit increase. Alibaba was close behind with a difference of 2.7 million units from 2018.
"Consumer appetite for smart speakers remained undimmed during the all-important Q4 period as newly launched devices with improved feature sets and audio performance helped drive record quarterly shipments," said David Watkins, director at Strategy Analytics. "Consumers across the world were once again enticed by scarcely believable deals from leading brands such as Google, Amazon, Baidu and Alibaba, while Google in particular stepped up its giveaway promotional activity in partnership with brands such as YouTube and Spotify."
Overall, the smart speaker segment touched a record high of 55.7 million sales during the fourth quarter of 2019, driven in part by strong holiday demand in the U.S. and Europe, the report said.
Stay on top of all Apple news right from your HomePod or HomePod mini. Say, "Hey, Siri, play AppleInsider Daily," and you'll get a fast update direct from the AppleInsider team.

According to the latest estimates from Strategy Analytics, Apple shipped 2.6 million HomePods in the last quarter of 2019 to capture a 4.7% slice of the global smart speaker market. The figure is up 65% from 1.6 million units shipped and a 4.1% marketshare in the year ago quarter.
Despite year-over-year growth, Apple remained in sixth place behind the likes of Amazon, Google and a cadre of Chinese companies.
Market leader Amazon shipped 15.8 million Echo devices to take a 28.3% share of the market, up from 13.7 million units in 2018. Google, which sells a range of speakers loaded with Google Home technology, shipped 13.9 million units for a 24.9% marketshare over the same period, up 20% year on year.
Both Amazon and Google saw their dominant position at the top of the segment erode as challengers Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi each enjoyed more fruitful per-quarter increases.
Baidu, for example, moved from 2.2 million units shipped in quarter four 2018 to 5.9 million units in 2019. The world's fifth-largest vendor, Xiaomi, saw similar growth from 1.8 million units to 4.7 million units over the same period. Alibaba, which sits between Baidu and Xiaomi in terms of marketshare, shipped 5.5 million units, up from 2.8 million units last year.
Apple notched the lowest uptick in sales on the year at 1 million devices, followed by Amazon's 2.1 million and Google's 2.4 million units. Baidu exhibited the largest change year-over-year with a 3.7 million unit bump and was trailed by Xiaomi's 2.9 million unit increase. Alibaba was close behind with a difference of 2.7 million units from 2018.
"Consumer appetite for smart speakers remained undimmed during the all-important Q4 period as newly launched devices with improved feature sets and audio performance helped drive record quarterly shipments," said David Watkins, director at Strategy Analytics. "Consumers across the world were once again enticed by scarcely believable deals from leading brands such as Google, Amazon, Baidu and Alibaba, while Google in particular stepped up its giveaway promotional activity in partnership with brands such as YouTube and Spotify."
Overall, the smart speaker segment touched a record high of 55.7 million sales during the fourth quarter of 2019, driven in part by strong holiday demand in the U.S. and Europe, the report said.
Stay on top of all Apple news right from your HomePod or HomePod mini. Say, "Hey, Siri, play AppleInsider Daily," and you'll get a fast update direct from the AppleInsider team.
Comments
In my usage Siri has performed on par with Alexa. In fact the most frustrating thing about Alexa is the numerous times it gets activated by dialog coming from the TV. When I'm watching "Schitt's Creek" it constantly gets activated when it hears the name, "Alexis" for example.
I have many HomeKit devices that also have Alexa skills so I'm able to ask Siri or Alexa to do the same things. My experience is I have to repeat my commands more often with Alexa. Also, there was an instance back in November right before Thanksgiving, where my Logitech Harmony skills just stopped working for a few days. I checked on Twitter and discovered I wasn't alone. This was after I had already wasted about an hour of my time troubleshooting. When I got back from the holiday, it was working again.
All said and done, in my experiences, I can't say that Alexa is far superior to Siri. Maybe because I use them both generically. That's not to say I don't believe you when you say Siri is far behind. I would just like some examples that I can try out myself.
And the notion that Apple is a company that caters to Wall Street is also absurd. You clearly don’t follow Apple very much.
Funny that the competition realised that a smart speaker would need multiuser support from day one.
Where I find Siri falls down is outside of these specific commands for home automation.
Let me give a couple of examples:
Ask Alexa what Gas Mark 3 is in Celsius and you’ll get the correct answer. Ask the same of HomePod and you get the generic Sorry, HomePod does not know this type of answer. It’s amazing how many seemingly simple questions Siri just does not know!
Another prime example, and one where the HomePod should absolute destroy Alexa is with Apple Music. If I say to Siri “Play shotgun” it plays the version from the 60’s by Junior Walker, which is not the song I want and is in fact a song I have never played. I ask Siri to play a different version of shotgun, it just plays the same damn song. In the end I have to specify, Siri, play Shotgun by George Ezra.
Now my children love Shotgun by George Ezra, I’d not be surprised if they have listened to it a 100 times or more and yet for some reason, on the HomePod, it insists on playing a song that we have never listened to instead of using logic to work out the one we want.
If we ask Alexa to play Shotgun it gets the George Ezra version every time and on the odd occasion where we ask it to play a song where the name has been used a few times over the years the command of play a different version actually plays a different bloody version!
I could give so many more examples, but I think you get the point. It’s crazy how Apple Music is better via Alexa than via Siri, that’s just embarrassing for Apple!
I don't care at all about Siri. In fact it's turned OFF.
Considering I've been able to acquire a Homepod PAIR for around $400, I could not be happier.
Stock repurchase program.
$100B (thereabouts) in cash that will serve no other purpose than pleasing Wall Street. It's something very important to the Street and to the individual Apple executives whose primary payment is in stock grants AFAIK, so don't kid yourself.