Smart Speaker Market

The Global Smart Speaker market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20% from 2017 to 2021, owing to the rapid growth in the adoption of smart homes, the development of AI technologies, and the entry of large internet/ technology companies. The market growth can also be attributed to the growth of display-based devices, which is helping smart speakers to maintain their growth momentum.

Furthermore, the leading smart speaker manufacturers are updating their standard portfolios with an emphasis on delivering good sound quality at low prices, which is projected to fuel the market in the forecasted term.

A smart speaker is a wireless speaker that may connect by Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other wireless protocols and is controlled by a virtual assistant. It is the most recent technical invention to dominate the consumer technology market, and it uses a voice command to conduct various tasks such as listening to music, ordering food, and shopping online.

The smart speakers can offer live weather updates, read the latest news, keep track of daily activities, and integrate with smart home equipment. These various qualities provide smart speakers an advantage over other technology products and services.

Alexa is expected to hold a major share in the Smart Speaker Market

In 2014, Amazon released the Alexa IVA smart speaker Echo. Since then, the technology has been used in Amazon's Echo device series as well as most firms' smart speakers. Alexa speaker is available in more than 80 countries, providing the firm with a large audience base to gather usage data and improve its services. The growth of electronic device sales are likely is propelling the growth of the smart speaker market.

North America leads the globe in terms of Smart Speaker Market

Countries in North America, such as the United States, Canada, and Mexico, are open to modern technology-enabled products. Because of the existence of early adopters and significant smart speaker providers, smart speakers have a high penetration rate in North American countries, particularly in the United States.

Customers' readiness to accept and deploy new technology has prompted regional producers to develop new and innovative items. Because key firms like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Bose, which make smart speakers, are situated in the United States, most products are launched and distributed there first, which leads to the growth of the North America Smart Speaker Market. 

The smart home segment is the largest contributor to the smart speaker market 

Because of their capabilities and convenience, smart speakers are most commonly used in the home. Smart speakers can use the user's voice to control smart gadgets, making day-to-day tasks easier. By connecting the gadget to the Internet, the user may control all smart devices with a voice command. Smart speakers mimic normal speech patterns and are easier to use than other smart devices.

The need for smart speakers in smart homes has been fueled by changing lifestyles, rising per capita income, and smart house users' preference for sophisticated entertainment systems.

The increased market share of Chinese businesses like Baidu, Alibaba, and Xiaomi, who have developed smart speakers with local language support, is projected to stimulate demand for smart speakers in the region.

Increasing Consumer Preference for Technologically Advanced Products

Consumer demands are growing steadily and with technological advancements and tending preferencing for smart homes are commonly enabled with smart speaker facilities. The primary advantage of smart speakers is that they make tedious tasks more expedient by making calls, scheduling appointments, answering questions, and others. 

Most users appreciate these time-saving features, but for some, they might be life-changing. They can give disabled individuals more independence by broadening their access to numerous platforms. For example, someone with a severe musculoskeletal disorder can use voice commands to turn on lights or other devices without help.

Privacy concerns of the users can restrict the growth of the smart speaker market

The slow rise of the smart speaker market could be related to growing data privacy concerns, especially since users are followed with everything they do, causing them to become more aware of what information they are sharing. As a result, consumer data privacy rules have been more stringent in recent years. Many people do not want their smart speakers to listen in on and analyze their private conversations.

Consumers find it difficult to trust giant tech corporations to appropriately handle data collected from a device that is continuously listening in their homes, especially with potential data scandals involving both Google and Amazon.

Susceptibility to Hacking

The interconnection of smart speakers is both a source of convenience and a significant vulnerability. The more devices link to the speaker, the more information a hacker can gain access to. When these devices are hacked, they become an entry point for the entire home network.

When users consider how vulnerable smart speakers are to hackers, this security weakness becomes much more dangerous. Researchers demonstrated that a laser pointer might be used to operate these gadgets from 360 feet distance in 2019. That is just one of the many ways smart speakers have been successfully hacked in the past.

Smart speakers, like many other IoT devices, have rudimentary security built in. While smart speakers may be safer than they formerly were, new vulnerabilities are always being discovered, and many security protections remain optional. Securing these devices is essentially up to the user in the absence of robust regulatory guidance. Hence, the high vulnerability of smart speakers to breaches hinders the overall growth of the global smart speakers market. 

Segmentation Overview

The Global Smart Speaker Market is segmented on the basis of components, Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA), and application. These major market segments are further fragmented into numerous sub-segments to study the market in detail.

By Component: 

• Hardware
• Microphone
• Power IC
• Memory
• Audio IC
• Processor
• Connectivity IC
• Speaker Driver
• Software

By Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA): 

• Alexa
• Google Assistant
• SIRI
• DUEROS
• XIAO AI
• Others

By Application: 

• Consumer
• Smart Office
• Smart Home
• Cloud services
• Others

Regional Overview

Geographically, the global smart speaker market has been divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. As per the studies, the North American smart speaker dominates the global marketplace owing to high penetration of smart speakers in the US owing to early-adopting user-base coupled with the presence of key smart speaker companies in the region such as Amazon, Google, Apple, and Bose that are based in the US.

Companies Operating in the Market

Alexa, Google Assistant, DuerOS, AliGenie, Xiao AI, Siri are some of the leading products in the Smart Speaker Market. Companies in the market are launching various new products, performing organic activities, merges and collaborations to boost their share in the market. Some of the key companies in the global smart speaker market are Amazon, Inc., Harman International, Apple Inc., Alibaba Group, Alphabet Inc., Altec Lansing, Baidu, Inc., Bose Corporation, Lenovo Group Ltd., LG Electronics, Onkyo Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Sony Corporation, Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom Co., Ltd. and Sonos, Xiaomi Inc., and among others.