CIRP Reports that U.S. Smart Speaker Installed Base Rose to 66 Million in 2018 with Amazon Holding 70% Share Compared to Google and Apple

CIRP Quarterly smart speaker tracking says U.S. installed base of users rose to 66 million in 2018 up from 36 million in 2017

Amazon Echo still commands 70% U.S. smart speaker market share when compared to 24% for Google Home and 6% for Apple HomePod, however, this analysis does not include third-party and off-brand smart speaker ownership

35% of U.S. smart speaker households owned multiple devices in 2018 up from 18% in 2017

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) released its estimates for the fourth quarter and full year smart speaker sales in the U.S. this morning saying that the installed base was 66 million users at the end of 2018. That reflected a rise of 13 million units from CIRPs third-quarter estimate of 53 million reflecting quarterly growth of 24.5%.

Amazon Retains Dominant Smart Speaker Share in U.S.

CIRP’s analysis shows that Amazon Echo smart speakers retained a dominant 70% installed base market share in 2018 with the Google Home product line at 24% and Apple HomePod at 6%. It is important to note that these figures do not include third-party and off-brand smart speakers such as Sonos, JBL, Harman Kardon, and Eufy. As a result, the overall installed base market share of each of the leading smart speaker makers is a bit lower. This analysis from CIRP, however, is useful in depicting the relative market share of the three leaders compared to each other.

Rise in Multiple Smart Speaker Households

CIRP also noted that households with multiple smart speakers rose to 35% in 2018 up from 18% a year earlier. Mike Levin, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP, commented about this rise and how Google has successfully matched Amazon’s strategy:

“Amazon and Google have succeeded in selling multiple units to a single household. Their strategies appear to include persuading owners to use smart speakers in multiple rooms, which helps create more active usage of the voice platform. And, Google has mostly caught up to Amazon in this strategy. A year ago, almost twice the percentage of Amazon Echo users had multiple units as Google Home users. Now, about one-third of both Amazon Echo and Google Home users have multiple units.”

The analysis was conducted between January 1-11, 2019 reflecting device owners as of December 31, 2018 and included 500 smart speaker owners of Amazon, Apple, or Google devices. You can read the full media release here.

Follow @bretkinsella Follow @voicebotai

2