New global smartspeaker data shows Apple's HomePod remains a bit player
Apple and the HomePod remain a marginal factor in the global smartspeaker market, not even in the top five brands, according to new research estimates.
The company fell into an "others" category reserved for companies outside the top five brands during the March quarter, which in total saw just 2.9 million shipments, Canalys said in a Monday report. The top five identified vendors were Amazon, Google, Baidu/Xiaodu, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.
Holding onto its lead, Amazon was up 84.7% year-over-year to 4.6 million units. Google grew 7% to 3.5 million. Chinese makers were on the march though, with Alibaba up 204.3% to 3.2 million, and Xiaomi rocketing 411.4% to 3.2 million. Baidu/Xiaodu speakers are less than a year old.
Canalys did not disclose figures for Apple in the report, instead choosing to discuss the other vendors in the list and the market as a whole.
Since its launch in February 2018, Apple has marketed the HomePod foremost as high-end audio, almost downplaying its Siri and HomeKit integrations. The product has likely been held back by its price tag -- though Apple has permanently lowered the price from $349 to $299, that still makes it far more expensive than Amazon and Google's entry-level speakers, which start at around $49. Even a bundle of two Amazon Echo speakers and the Echo Sub is $50 less than a single HomePod.
Apple has periodically been rumored as working on a lower-cost HomePod, but that talk has largely quietened down.
Another obstacle may be a lack of third-party integrations. There are far fewer HomeKit accessories than ones compatible with Amazon Alexa, and the only music service with full Siri integration is Apple Music -- leaving out world leader Spotify, as well as smaller regional players like Deezer and Pandora.
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.
The company fell into an "others" category reserved for companies outside the top five brands during the March quarter, which in total saw just 2.9 million shipments, Canalys said in a Monday report. The top five identified vendors were Amazon, Google, Baidu/Xiaodu, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.
Holding onto its lead, Amazon was up 84.7% year-over-year to 4.6 million units. Google grew 7% to 3.5 million. Chinese makers were on the march though, with Alibaba up 204.3% to 3.2 million, and Xiaomi rocketing 411.4% to 3.2 million. Baidu/Xiaodu speakers are less than a year old.
Canalys did not disclose figures for Apple in the report, instead choosing to discuss the other vendors in the list and the market as a whole.
Since its launch in February 2018, Apple has marketed the HomePod foremost as high-end audio, almost downplaying its Siri and HomeKit integrations. The product has likely been held back by its price tag -- though Apple has permanently lowered the price from $349 to $299, that still makes it far more expensive than Amazon and Google's entry-level speakers, which start at around $49. Even a bundle of two Amazon Echo speakers and the Echo Sub is $50 less than a single HomePod.
Apple has periodically been rumored as working on a lower-cost HomePod, but that talk has largely quietened down.
Another obstacle may be a lack of third-party integrations. There are far fewer HomeKit accessories than ones compatible with Amazon Alexa, and the only music service with full Siri integration is Apple Music -- leaving out world leader Spotify, as well as smaller regional players like Deezer and Pandora.
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
It’s not a hardware problem, Apple’s superior in that regard.
The question is: How do you develop a superior AI without customer data?
... Who’s asking the question? Why? How? Where? ... kind of important.
Smart speakers are more than just about playing music...
Unexpectedly, my biggest problem with homepod is the difficulty in controlling from an iPad/iPhone. Even changing the volume is a chore (note that I sometimes need to do this on an iOS device because Siri on the homepod is not understanding me). Unexpectedly because this doesn't even require Siri and so is just UX design.
I still think that the screen on top should display the time remaining when using a timer. We know it can and it would be superior to asking constantly how much time is remaining.
I'm guessing it's a profitable line for Apple, and that they (as usual) don't care about worshipping at the Church of Market Share.
As far as Bluetooth support, ymmv, but I’ve never found a Bluetooth speaker that is as reliable and easy to use as the HomePod with AirPlay and with Apple Music I have 40 million songs on my countertop whether I have an iDevice with me or not.
Everyone has their own tastes, so you can buy whatever makes you happy. It’s not a zero-sum game, everyone gets to play. I hate claptrap and the HomePod is as anti-claptrap as you can possibly get for an awesome sounding and room filling music playback device.
I have had no problems at all with using Siri for music related queries. Yeah, I ask very little of Siri on the HomePod because it’s a music device. If I want to get chatty or delve into arcane trivia there’s a $30 Alexa in the same room that I can converse with endlessly- as long as it doesn’t try to talk or fart over the music.
You're high. Streaming via AirPlay is effortless, and sounds much better than BT. You want a BT speaker, go get one, plenty on the market. But if you want a high-quality AP speaker, there are much fewer excellent options, and HP is certainly one of them.
Hey Siri, increase the volume.
Hey Siri, decrease the volume.
Hey Siri, what’s the current volume?
Hey Siri, set the volume to forty percent.
Hey Siri, who is this artist.
The biggest difference I see with HomePod compared to Echo devices is its ability to understand me regardless of the output volume of the speaker. I can interact with HomePod at a normal speaking volume even when HomePod is blasting away at high volume.
It's a ring of LEDs, not a LCD display. The colour could change perhaps to indicate the time remaining, but trying to have an actual display would be infeasible. I agree with you over remote control of the HP though, it's difficult to do so from the Watch too. When a HomePod is playing, iOS should always show the controls on the associated iOS device as it does when the iOS device is playing locally. Otherwise it's a hassle to go into the control centre, choose the "now playing" control, then scroll to the HP. Whilst Airplay 2 is definitely better than 1, the accessibility of the controls is still pretty awkward.
You're the one who's high, on Apple fumes apparently. Try removing your head from Apple's ass once in a while, the air out here is quite nice.
It's not effortless. iOS frequently forgets that I'm controlling the HomePod and the controls just go away, so another dive into the control centre/music app's Airplay button to select the HP. Same on the Watch.
Playing from iTunes to multiple Airplay devices is slow and clunky, enabling another output causes the music to stall while it waits for the device to wake up and then there's a 50-50 chance of it actually working or going back to one output, so then I have to go through the slow and frustrating procedure of trying to coax iTunes into enabling multiple outputs again. And before you make your usual excuse that the Mac is too slow or old hardware/user error/can't possibly be an Apple issue, it's a 2019 i9 iMac and a 4K AppleTV over a gigabit connection through Ubiquiti networking gear. And the iOS multi-output Airplay UI isn't much better.
Oh, there's no way to add a delay to an AirPlay output either, so Airplay on my AppleTV ends up with a few tens of milliseconds delay relative to the HomePod, making its output unusable anyway. Airplay should be using broadcasts when more than one device is playing instead of unicasting to each device, would help with synchronisation. And before you try and blame the speakers attached to the AppleTV, the delay is still present with different speakers.
Bluetooth can stream lossless audio, so that's nothing to do with anything. The quality from a decent BT speaker can be just as good as the HomePod. I have a Bose Bluetooth speaker, and it's pretty damn good, especially as it was less than half the cost of the HP.