Many are the rumors that spoke about the poor sales of Apple regarding its new HomePod, a smart speaker that today has only landed in three countries officially although it has already reached all parts of the planet and it is that the followers of the apple brand They don't need to be launched in their country to figure out how to get hold of a unit.
Well, despite the fact that analysts have assured that this product will be a new failure for Apple, sales of the product during the first quarter of 2018 do not say the same and it is estimated that sales have already reached 600.000 units, all this under the magnifying glass of the company StrategyAnalytics.
It's true that Apple's sales have allowed it to capture only 6 percent of the global smart speaker market, lagging far behind Amazon and Google. but to have arrived at this sector nothing, the data is not bad at all.
Amazon sold about 4 million Echo smart speakers during the quarter, reaching a 43.6 percent market share, while Google shipped roughly 2.4 million Google Home speakers with a 26.5 percent market share. Alibaba also led Apple with 700.000 shipments, while Xiaomi fell behind with 200.000.
Apple has a long way to go to catch up with Google and Amazon, who have seen tremendous growth in shipments over the past year. Amazon shipments increased by two million compared to the first quarter of 2017, while those of Google increased by 2,1 million.
Amazon's market share has fallen year-over-year due to strong speaker sales from Google and new market entrants such as Apple, Alibaba, and Xiaomi, but Amazon remains the world's leading supplier of smart speakers.
Amazon and Google accounted for 70% of global smart speaker shipments in the first quarter of 2018, although their combined share fell from 84% in the fourth quarter of 2017 and 94% in the prior year quarter. This is partly due to strong growth in the Chinese smart speaker market, where both Amazon and Google are currently absent. Alibaba and Xiaomi are leading the way in China and their strength in the domestic market alone is proving to be enough to propel them into the global market. top five.
Apple's only speaker, the HomePod, is priced at $ 349. Apple focused heavily on audio quality in the hope that consumers would be willing to pay more for a device that had superior sound, but the higher price tag, a delayed set of features, and a lack of native support for Music services like Spotify may have slowed sales somewhat.