What you need to know
- Amazon dominated smart speaker sales in the third quarter of 2019, shipping 10.4 million units for 36.6% of the market.
- Google fell 40% in smart speaker sales, shipping only 3.5 million units for a market share of 12.3%.
- Google's market share was further hurt by the rise of Chinese smart speaker makers Alibaba and Baidu, which saw massive growth in Q3 2019.
The latest Canalys report is out for the third quarter of 2019, and it shows sales of smart speakers and displays are still on the rise. In the third quarter, the sales of smart speakers alone grew 44.9% for a total of 28.6 million units sold.
However, as always, there are winners and there are losers. This quarter Amazon is the clear winner for smart speakers, sitting at the top with 36.6% market share overall and shipping 10.4 million units in Q3 of 2019.
Overall, Amazon saw a growth of 65.9% annually boosted by its strong sales from its Prime Day, back-to-school, and off-to-college promotions during the quarter. Sales were also helped by Amazon's "Echo Upgrade Program" that gives customers a discount when upgrading an old Echo speaker for a newer one.
Unfortunately for Google, it saw a major slip moving only 3.5 million units during Q3 2019 for a 40.1% drop in sales from last year at this time. Even worse, Google saw its market share drop overall from 29.8% in Q3 of 2018 to 12.3% in the third quarter of 2019.
While the drop in market share can be tied to slower sales, it also has much more to do with the rise of smart speakers from Chinese brands. Where Google used to be second to Amazon, this year smart speaker popularity has surged in China with Alibaba and Baidu taking the second and third slots —knocking Google down to fourth.
Smart displays sales didn't move as many units as smart speakers in Q3 2019, shipping only 6.3 million total, but it was still great news because that's a 500% growth for the market. The big winner here was Baidu with 2.3 million units sold, which was more than its smart speaker. Amazon wasn't far behind, selling 2.2 million in the third quarter, while Google only moved a paltry 700,000 smart displays.
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