Smart speakers are the gateway drug to other smart-home products (AMZN, GOOGL)

Amazon and Google are making a hard push for smart speaker sales this holiday season. Both slashed prices before Cyber Monday, with Amazon cutting the price of its entry-level Echo Dot all the way down to $29.99.

The two companies' hardware innovation and price cutting have been paying off. According to a recent comScore report, the portion of US households that own a smart speaker rose to 11% in October from 8.1% in June.  

Amazon, Google, and other smart speaker makers have another reason for wanting to drive sales. As we can see in this chart from Statista, people who own spark speakers are much more likely to buy other smart-home products. As comScore put it, "the smart speaker is the gateway device to enabling a smart home." 

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

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