Smart speaker war: Amazon Echo beats Google Home in sales numbers

Smart speakers have slowly and steadily become popular. The devices have been gaining popularity despite many privacy-related scandals. They have been accused of hearing and recording users without prompting.

According to a new report by analyst firm Canalys, smart speaker sales have risen by 45 percent in the Q3 year-on-year.

The report also throws up some other interesting results. While smaller players have started to emerge, the majority of the market share belongs to Amazon and Google, unsurprisingly. But, Amazon, which was the pioneer in smart speaker tech, is far ahead of its nearest rival, Google. Players like Apple, Xiaomi and Alibaba have miniscule share in comparison. Amazon will be shipping more than 10 million Echo smart speakers by the end of the year, according to the report.

In Q3 2019, Echo devices have 36.6 percent market share up from 31.9 percent in the same quarter the previous year, selling 6.3 million devices during the same time. This is an annual growth of 65.9 percent.

Amazon's sales got a boost thanks to the Echo Upgrade Program that gives customers a discount when upgrading an old Echo speaker for a newer one.

Google actually got a drop in its market share. It sold 3.5 million devices, down from 5.9 million devices last year, a slowdown of around 40 percent. Its market share dropped from 29.8 percent to 12.3 percent in Q3 year-on-year.

Chinese firms such as Alibaba and Baidu have been a surprise though, since these smart speakers are majorly sold inside China. Alibaba showed 77.6 percent growth rising from 2.2 million shipments in Q3 2018 to 3.9 million shipments in Q3 2019, while Baidu rose from 1 million shipments in 2018 to 3.7 million shipments in 2019.

The reason behind Amazon's popularity is that it has smart speakers with a variety of features and price points. Google and Apple are actually marketing smart speakers as premium devices.

Google Assistant is available on Android smartphones, while the Alexa voice assistant is largely available on Amazon's smart speakers.