Apple’s products and services tend to sell better in the home market than elsewhere in the world. But the HomePod is an exception, having captured a paltry 6 percent of the U.S. smart speaker market in 2018.
That’s according to a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), which I can’t find anywhere online, not even on CIRP’s website. (Apparently, you have to sign-up with the firm to receive the reports via email.) So I’ll have to go off of what others are saying of this report.
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Which is this: There are approximately 66 million smart speakers in U.S. homes now, and only 3.96 million of them are Apple HomePods. Meanwhile, Amazon apparently dominates this market, by usage share, with a 70 percent share. And Google is second with 24 percent.
CIRP attributes HomePod’s failure solely to its price.
“Amazon and Google both have broad model lineups, ranging from basic to high-end, with even more variants from Amazon,” CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz writes in the report. “Apple, of course, has only its premium-priced HomePod, and likely won’t gain significant share until it offers an entry-level product closer to Echo Dot and Home mini.”
Yes, Apple would gain share with a lower-priced speaker. But doing such a thing is not in Apple’s DNA, and it ignores the fact that Apple’s digital personal assistant is much less capable than those from Amazon and Google. Apple’s customers have never shown restraint when it comes to spending money. So the HomePod is most likely just a bad product, one that is too tightly locked-in to the Apple ecosystem, and not just overpriced.
Still, Amazon and Google do benefit in an indirect way from the choice and pricing of their own smart speakers: Many of their customers have multiple smart speakers in their home, helping to improve their leads. “About one-third of both Amazon Echo and Google Home users have multiple units,” CIRP confirms.
wocowboy
Premium Member<blockquote><em><a href="#403012">In reply to chadhassler:</a></em></blockquote><p>We have a couple of Amazon Echos around the house and a Google Home Hub in the kitchen for quick recipe checks and news updates while making coffee in the morning, but our primary wireless speaker is a HomePod. The rest of the speakers don't hold a candle to the sound quality of the HomePod, that's why it is used a lot to crank music while we are getting ready in the morning. And it plays podcasts and iHeart Radio and Siri answers basic questions such as calendar events and reminders. Not everything but it works well enough. We are an all-Apple home for phones, so anyone in the house can use the HomePod if they want to. Yes the thing cost some money but for us it is just fine. An Echo is great for what it does, but for listening to music it just doesn't cut it. Apple may not be selling them by the truckload, but that's OK, we like ours and that's what matters.</p>
provision l-3
<p>I'm guessing that Apple isn't done with the HomePod yet. If they follow their M.O. they will chip away at it in an effort to come come up with a "hit" product. Same approach as the Watch which also didn't set any sales records when it was initially released but is now a pretty successful product. So, yeah, HomePod didn't blow the doors off but putting it in the failure category might be premature given Apple's history and approach. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#403021">In reply to provision l-3:</a></em></blockquote><p>Smartwatch ownership in the US still hasn't broken into double digits and of course Apple watches comprise only a fraction of those devices. So I'm not sure if its sales could be considered "pretty successful".</p>
provision l-3
<blockquote><em><a href="#403029">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p>Fair enough. It really comes down which way a person wants to define success I guess. If you look at Apple's business breakdown the Wearables, Home and Accessories made 7.3 billion dollars last quarter. That is half a billion more than the iPad brought in and 0.1 billion less than the Mac. Of course there are other products in there like AirPods, AppleTV and HomePod but I'm guessing the largest revenue driver in there is Apple Watch. For comparison, the most the iPod ever made in a single quarter is 4 billion. So, I think it is fair to say the Apple Watch is, if nothing else, pretty successful financially. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#403069">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>Few of the big tech companies established in the last 20 years are based on earning money the old-fashioned way – selling a product to customers for profit. Google, Facebook, twitter etc: their all about a different agenda. Amazon is actually closer to a traditional tech company than Google is. </p>
BrianEricFord
<blockquote><em><a href="#403069">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Serious question, but what are you doing with Google’s offering that makes it clearly better than Amazon’s OR Apple’s?</p><p><br></p><p>Also, I’ll take that bet on Apple and data collection / privacy.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#403096">In reply to red.radar:</a></em></blockquote><p>That would be a more convincing argument if homepods came along before the Echo was introduced and if they had a name that suggested "speaker".</p>
BrianEricFord
<blockquote><em><a href="#403104">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>They do. AirPods aren’t Siri-focused at all — they’re little speakers for your ears — and HomePod is clearly referencing that connection.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#403107">In reply to BrianEricFord:</a></em></blockquote><p>Just because AirPods are earbuds, doesn't mean that anything with "pods" in the name is a speaker, just as it doesn't mean they are all hand-held music players.</p>
BrianEricFord
<blockquote><em><a href="#403140">In reply to nostatic:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Well, as a longtime Apple fanboy, I guess what you say MUST be true.</p>
dontbe evil
<p>what happened to paul? did they hack his account?</p>