Connected speakers: the Amazon Echo at the top, Apple’s HomePod on the rise

What connected speaker
was the best seller in the last quarter? Who from Apple, Google, Amazon or Xiaomi dominates the market? So many questions to which we answer in the following lines.

Smart speakers are a popular gift this Christmas, but these devices are also in high demand during the rest of the year. A study by Strategy Analytics gives us an overview of the state of the market for the third quarter of 2021.

Amazon ahead of Google, Apple far behind

Unsurprisingly, Amazon dominated the segment of connected speakers and screens during the period. The Alexa-powered Echo took 26.4% market share, a slight decrease from 28.9% in Q3 2020, but a small increase in sales (from 10.3 to 10.4 million units passed from one year to the next).

Google retains its second place with good growth of around 18%, which allows it to post a 20.5% market share and threaten Amazon’s leadership.

The following positions are attributed to Chinese companies Baidu and Alibaba, with 13.6% and 10.8% market share respectively. But the trend is very different between the two players. While Baidu sold 15% more products in Q3 2021 than in Q3 2020, Alibaba saw its sales fall by 6%.

HomePod Mini powers Apple

Apple manages to exceed 10% market share thanks to an explosion in demand of around 92%. The HomePod and Siri range finally manage to pull the plug. With its 5.1% market share, Xiaomi is in small shape, as evidenced by the 3% drop in sales.

A total of 39.3 million connected speakers and displays were sold globally in the third quarter of 2021, a 10% increase from the same period last year.

Google’s Nest Mini is the most popular product with consumers with five million items sold. It is ahead of Apple’s HomePod Mini and Amazon’s fourth-generation Echo Dot. This ranking confirms that users primarily want an affordable smart speaker rather than more expensive devices with better audio quality.

Source: Strategy Analytics