Apple Takes Fourth Spot in Global Smart Speaker Shipments, Google Surging

Apple sold an estimated 600,000 Homepods during the first quarter of this year, according to new estimates from Strategy Analytics. The market research company reported this week that Apple took the fourth spot in global smart speaker shipments that quarter, following Amazon, Google and Alibaba.

Amazon has long dominated the smart speaker space with its line of Echo products, but the company’s lead is narrowing, according to Strategy Analytics. In Q1, Amazon shipped an estimated 4 million speakers, which equals 43.6% of all smart speakers shipped during that time frame. A year ago, Amazon’s market share was still at 81.8%, with 2 million devices shipped during Q1 of 2017.

The big winner seems to be Google, which shipped an estimated 2.4 million speakers during Q1 — enough for a 26.5% share of the global smart speaker market. In Q1 of 2017, Google shipped just 0.3 million devices, amounting to a 12.4% market share.

Google’s massive growth seems to be driven largely by the introduction of the Google Home Mini, which nominally retails for just $49, but frequently sells for even less.

Apple began selling its Homepod for $349 in February. On the one hand, this means that the company wasn’t even competing during the entire first quarter. However, February sales likely also got a massive boost from brand-loyal early adopters.

Bloomberg reported in April that some Apple stores were selling fewer Homepods than expected, resulting in excess inventory.

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