Google vs. Amazon: Who won?
LAS VEGAS – The Google team is seemingly everywhere at CES 2019, both in signage at the main convention center, (“Hey Google”), a large booth presence and hundreds of people dressed in white “Hey Google” jumpsuits, topped off with matching “Hey Google” beanies.
Archrival Amazon, on the other hand, has a small, understated ballroom at the lower trafficked Sands Convention Expo, showcasing a potpourri of products, from Amazon and other vendors, that use the Alexa voice commands. Staffers are adorned in blue Alexa sports shirts.
On the eve of the show, the companies threw down the gauntlet: Amazon Echo speakers and third-party vendors using the system have sold over 100 million units, Amazon said. That’s one-tenth of Google’s announced stat, which is that 1 billion people have the Google Assistant, in Android and Apple iOS phones, the Google Home speakers and third-party products.
Both companies are set to dominate the next stage of computing, voice style, whether that’s via announcements (“Hey, Google”) or graphical routines set up to have the assistants work with us automatically.
Google pushed really hard for dominance at CES “and won 2018, by growing faster than Amazon,” says Bret Kinsella, the editor of Voicebot.ai, a blog that chronicles the growth of voice computing. But even with the smaller physical presence, Amazon won the CES bragging rights, by just having more products from more companies available for Alexa, he says.
For instance, while Google offered many products, including a new $79 alarm clock from Lenovo, the promise of the Assistant finally coming to the Sonos One speaker in 2019 a year and a half after the company announced it and “Hey, Google” on Samsung TVs and the Instant Pot, Amazon countered with many, many more products, including:
❚ An electric piano from Roland that answers to Alexa commands. The latest edition of the Go:Piano has an Alexa skill that will order it to act as a player piano or to record your own tickling of the ivories. No word on pricing or availability yet.
❚ Smart glasses from several companies, including Focal by North and Vuzik, which are refining how they work with the voice assistant. We tested both and saw faint imagery in front of our eyes on the pairs. For audio on the North, you use a ring remote on your finger to click a mini joystick-like button and ask questions to Alexa, who answers from the back of the glasses through a small audio speaker. Both sell for $1,000.
❚ Ovens from June and Whirlpool, a lawn mower, connected bike, cars from Audi and China’s Byton that respond to Alexa, headphones, mirror, the return of the Alexa-enabled $8,000 toilet from Kohler (this time, the company says it will finally release the product, in the fourth quarter of 2019) and a new $600 faucet from Kohler. Just say, “Alexa, turn on the water” or “Alexa, make the water hot.”
In the latest third-quarter market share statistics, Amazon had a 74.7 percent share for Echo speakers, compared to 24.6 percent for Google, according to researcher Canalys. However, Amazon grew 1.3 percent, to 187 percent for Google, which had led the market share stats in the first and second quarter. Amazon’s summer Prime Day promotion made the difference for Amazon in
Q3, says Canalys.
Both companies aggressively price the speakers, especially during the holidays, when they sell them for basically half price.
“If they could give them away, they would,” said Jason Johnson, founder of the August Home smart lock, which works with both Alexa and Google.
“Amazon and Google are in a land grab,” he says. “It’s a race to get Alexa or the Google Assistant into every home. Because once you start with one, you’re unlikely to switch.”
Usage wise, while Google claims the largest audience at nearly 1 billion, Apple’s Siri has, due to the size of the iPhone universe, 500 million people; that’s compared to 400 million who have Microsoft’s Cortana installed on Windows computers and finally 100 million for Alexa, according to Voicebot.
At CES, Samsung doubled down on its little-used personal assistant, Bixby, and said it would be available in virtually every one of its consumer products this year, reaching 500 million people who buy Samsung products yearly.
But how many of these people will actually use the services?
The companies are pushing so hard to get their position in voice computing because “the battle for clicks, for pinches and zooms are over,” says Kinsella. “The Assistant will decide which website you go to, which shopping site you visit. Who is in control of those choices? Google, Amazon, Samsung, Apple, Microsoft? This is a battle for survival.”