Amazon will continue to dominate smart speaker market in 2019

Google, Apple, Sonos and others will gain some share of the smart speaker market in 2019, but they won’t dethrone Amazon as the market leader any time soon: That’s the gist of a new Emarketer report predicting next year’s smart speaker sales trends.

63.3% of all smart speaker owners will have an Amazon Echo device in their home next year, according to that report. That’s slightly down from 66.6% this year, but still far ahead of the competition: 31% of all smart speaker owners will have a Google Home device, while 12% will have a speaker from another manufacturer, including Sonos and Apple.

In 2018, Google came in at 29.5%, while Sonos, Apple and others captured just 8.3% of the market. It’s worth noting that some consumers own devices from more than one company, which explains why the total number adds up to more than 100%.

Altogether, 74.2 million people will use a smart speaker in 2019, up 15% over 2018 usage totals.

This latest data comes just a day after a new Adobe Analytics report highlighted some of the way smart speaker owners are using their devices. One interesting insight from that report: The kitchen isn’t actually the most popular place to put a smart speaker anymore. 63% smart speaker owners have a smart speaker in their living room, followed by 42% who have one in their bedroom and 37% who have such a device in their kitchen. (RTRS)