Google, Amazon Enjoying Healthy Growth Of Voice-Activated Devices

Voice-activated technology has been growing in adoption, with the Amazon Echo and Google Home both seeing an increase in units sold of 39 percent year-over-year.

That’s according to an analyst by ADI, which was covered by CMO. “This indicates that devices sales are performing well but have not yet become a standard household purchase,” Trevor Jones, an analyst at ADI, said in the report.

According to the analysis, which is based on 14.3 billion visits to online retailers from May 2016 to May 2017 and 14.5 million social mentions around voice assistants and voice assistant devices and 397 consumer interviews, the researcher found Google Home sold more than the Echo Dot over the course of the holiday selling period last year. Since then, it has lost ground but is still in a leadership position over the Echo, which costs more. In terms of revenue, Google Home is ahead of all the other devices during and after the holiday period.  “People appear to gravitate toward the cheaper price point of the Echo Dot, but at the end of the day, the more expensive Google Home is bringing in the money,” Jones said in the report.

In addition to selling well, the devices are also spurring a strong community for content creators online. The report noted there are 778,000 connections to voice assistants, and the number is increasing every year. The websites are driving excitement and increasing use of the devices, the report said.  Looking out to the future, ADI said there is a lot of room for improvement. Outside of the holidays, the year-over-year growth is 39 percent, but 49 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed said they don’t use a voice assistant. The market, noted ADI, needs to do a better job of convincing consumers that voice-activated digital assistants will be a main way to communicate in the future.