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Google Zooms By Amazon In Smart Speaker Shipments, Report Says (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the speed-racer dept.

A new report released this week says that Google has surpassed Amazon in global smart speaker shipments in the first quarter of 2018. "[Research firm Canalys] says Google shipped 3.2 million Google Home and Home Mini speakers over the course of the quarter," reports Ars Technica. "Amazon, meanwhile, is said to have shipped 2.5 million Echo speakers." From the report: According to the report, Google jumped from taking 19.3 percent of smart speaker shipments in Q1 2017 to 36.2 percent this past quarter. Amazon accounted for a whopping 79.6 percent of shipments in the year-ago quarter but fell to 27.7 percent in Q1 2018, the report says. Now, it appears the Home has reached a point of parity with the Echo; this report would mark the first time Google has overtaken Amazon in total shipments. Canalys credits Google's rise in part to retailers and channel operators "prioritizing" the Home over the Echo, given that Amazon is one of its biggest competitors in retail at large. A couple of caveats: neither Amazon nor Google breaks out quarterly sales figures for each device family, so Canalys' figures likely aren't 100-percent exact. It's also worth noting that "shipments" are not the same as "sales," so it's possible that deals and discounts on the devices have affected the figures to an extent.

15 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Does this include free units? by EvilSS · · Score: 2

    If so then no surprise because google has been giving out free minis all over the place lately.

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    1. Re: Does this include free units? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      They shipped them...now all they have to do is sell them!

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      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    2. Re:Does this include free units? by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      I logged in to post exactly that.

      I bought 3 Google Nest protects late last year and each came with a free google home mini. I gave them away as Christmas gifts, and so far 2 have never been opened and the third was use for a single day and put back in the box.

  2. Re:But for how long? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    I have a Xiaomi TV box (Android) and it's great. In fact it's one of the few that does YouTube 1080p60 and Netflix 4k, and it's cheap too.

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  3. They're not smart speakers... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're not "smart speakers." They're "connected listeners". Aka bugs for your home.

    1. Re:They're not smart speakers... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I know, the mind really boggles at people who would willingly install these. Perhaps they'll change their mind when they become compulsory, shouldn't an employer be allowed to install these in contracted employees home as long as they are in the employment contract, to more readily allow 'er' 'um' work from home and 'cough' 'cough' more effective out of hours 'er' business communications. Sheeple paying to be monitored, exploited and manipulated by a corporation, sheep that shear themselves, the wilful ignorance is impressive.

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      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:They're not smart speakers... by azcoyote · · Score: 1

      Well, since I don't make it a habit of saying things that will get me arrested by the FBI even in my home, I'm not terribly afraid.

      Anyway, I have to admit that my Google Home device is rather disappointing. It's a third-party speaker and Google withholds the latest updates from it just because. There's simply too many obvious things that it cannot do. I would rather have Alexa, but I got this because it was very cheap.

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    3. Re: They're not smart speakers... by triffid_98 · · Score: 1

      Hi Alexa, what percentage of diesel fuel should I mix with the 50 pound sacks of ammonium nitrate in my car?

  4. Google Winning Big Brother Wars! by Chas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sorry, but these things are tantamout to volunteering to be spied upon 24x7.

    I'm sure they're cool and entertaining and may have some actual utility.

    But I wouldn't be caught dead with one of the fucking things.

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    1. Re:Google Winning Big Brother Wars! by supremebob · · Score: 2

      You know that these things only send out your voice instructions to "the cloud" when the "Hey Google" or "Alexa" keywords are triggered, right? Otherwise, your voice goes nowhere.

      People have connected packet sniffers to these things and confirmed this. I don't understand the paranoia over smart speakers. Sure, they'll probably get hacked at some point (like any other network connected device), but I'm sure that Google and Amazon will have patches available when the time comes.

    2. Re:Google Winning Big Brother Wars! by supremebob · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I read up about that. It seems that she triggered Alexa to record a voice message with something she said, it it was recording her as designed.

      Not sure if you would call that a bug or user error, but it's not something that was designed on purpose.

  5. Shipment? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1
    Shipping more as a winning metric is reminiscent of Sarah Palin having a number 1 bestseller when the McCain/Palin Presidential campaign bought up most of the copies of the book.

    Seems like Amazon could take the instant lead by just making their shipments bigger without one sale.

    I wonder when the chip implant version of Home and echo will come out?

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    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  6. Amazed, but not in a good way. by blunttrauma · · Score: 1

    It is mystifying to me that anyone thinks having an always listening marketing device in your house is anything but a horrible idea.

  7. 3, 2, 1. Patent suit by technosaurus · · Score: 1

    If you haven't detected the pattern already, when the initial leader gets surpassed, they dont try to innovate and compete, they fall back on patent protections. I would argue that none of it passes the obvious test - I wrote my own extensible version a decade ago by piping poketsphinx_continuous through a bash read line loop... though I didn't keep any data (except the current line) unless you asked it to dictate.

  8. remember it is shipments and not sales by renegade600 · · Score: 1

    the one thing google has over amazon is they have the walmarts and lowes stores. made it easier for impulse buying. plus it increases shipment. I can go to the local walmarts and they will have a large inventory of google homes. the same with lowes. it is impossible to get any amazon alexa devices in the local area. have to go to the larger cities where there are best buy, bed, bath and beyond and other speciality stores to get one if you don't want to order online.