The Indian smart speakers market is recording strong growth with 2018 being the highest number of unit shipments so far. According to International Data Corporation (IDC)’s India monthly smart speaker device tracker, a total of 753,000 units were shipped in 2018 in the country.
As per IDC, Amazon remains the leader with a 59 per cent market share during the year. Google has also begun making a mark after its foray in second quarter of 2018 and has garnered almost all of the remaining market with a 39 per cent unit share for the year.
IDC defines smart speakers as speakers embedded with a smart assistant in the speaker itself. Smart speakers were first introduced to the Indian market in the last quarter of 2017 when Amazon launched its Echo range of devices in the country. Since then, more than half a dozen companies have launched their devices in this category.
“Google Home Mini outsold all other smart speaker models, emerging as a top seller. However, the Echo Dot with its second and third generation models was the most dominant series with four out of ten devices sold in the country,” IDC stated in its report.
“Though the smart speaker is a relatively young product in India, the integration of voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant in smart devices is gaining immense popularity in the country. The main driver of the early adoption so far is the novelty factor around this technology. However, it is certainly driving the shift in consumer behavior and accelerating the adoption of voice interfaces in India,” said Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager for Client Devices, IDC India.
According to IDC, the consumer segment contributed to the majority of smart speaker sales in the country. However, the purchase of smart speakers by enterprises also witnessed a surge during the festival time, primarily for gifting purposes, while the actual enterprise adoption for vertical specific use cases remains at a nascent stage.
The majority of the sales in this segment was online channels. These channels included e-tailers and vendor’s own websites which accounted for about 55 per cent of the smart speakers sale in the country.
“With the increasing acceptance of smart devices among consumers in India, Google and Amazon are identifying new ways of building an ecosystem for smart speakers to provide an enhanced consumer experience and building trust for secured use of these devices at home,” added Jaipal.
IDC also said that with the growth of smart speakers and voice assistant devices, traditional speaker companies are also planning to implement voice assistants in their devices in the next few months.