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Google Home Outships Amazon Echo for Second Quarter in Row

Posted by msmash on from the no-longer-a-dominant dept.

According to the research firm Canalys, Google shipped 5.4 million Google Home speakers in the quarter, compared to 4.1 million for Echo. It's the second quarter in a row that Echo took a backseat to Google. From a report: Things have changed dramatically from the year ago figures. Then, Amazon had an 82% market share of the connected speaker market, to Google's 17%. For the second quarter of this year, Google leads with 32% share and a 449 percent growth, to 24.5% for Amazon. What's behind the turnaround?

Voicebot.ai, a newsletter that tracks the connected speaker market, chalks it up to Google having more languages available in international markets for the Google Home speaker than Amazon does for Echo, so Google is available in more countries. And growth is coming from global. Only 16% of the new volume growth came from the U.S. in Q2 2018, says Canalys.

48 comments

  1. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google surveillance for all the world!

    1. Re: Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      an the people is happy about that. Silly. Google is evil.

    2. Re: Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We have proof, folks prefer google over amazon tracking their every word.

    3. Re: Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So at least 9.5 million more idiots this quarter. Yays I can maths.

    4. Re:Great! by johnsie · · Score: 1

      You sound like Lolly, that paranoid woman out of Orange is the New Black. Always ranting and raving how the NSA is chasing after her.

  2. Bad judgement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So it is not just Americans who lack judgement and put an internet connected spy device in their homes? For no real benefit except the novelty of being able to do simple things with voice commands.

    1. Re:Bad judgement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So it is not just Americans who lack judgement and put an internet connected spy device in their homes? [...]

      You should consider the possibility that TFA & links referenced within are works of fiction.

  3. Google is the better product by JoeyRox · · Score: 3

    I started out with the Echos and now use both Minis and Echo's. Alexa currently integrates into more third-party skills, owing to its head start in the market, but Google whips it when it comes to natural language recognition, syntax and context matching, and back-end logic.

    1. Re:Google is the better product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      But Google's natural language responses are irritating. Like a middle aged person trying to speak like a millennial - and I say this as a middle aged gen X.

    2. Re:Google is the better product by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Also Google has a track record of securing their voice input. They are more transparent too - you can listen to everything it's ever listened to by logging in to your account.

      Their devices have a button that can activate them so they don't have to be listening all the time either.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Google is the better product by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 2

      They are more transparent too - you can listen to everything it's ever listened to by logging in to your account.

      Sorry, is it supposed to make me feel better that Google has permanently archived everything it's ever listened to in my house?

    4. Re:Google is the better product by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Not saying I want one, but it's better than having no access to that data.

      Or turn voice history off and use the button for maximum privacy.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Google is the better product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have to consider the enormous wealth of information Google has via it's search engine as a 3rd party skill (even if it's the same company). That puts Google firmly number one, far more than anything Amazon has to offer beyond trying to sell you something. That with the better speech recognition makes it #1 overall.

    6. Re:Google is the better product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This reminds me of the North Korean tablet :

      Woolim also constantly keeps tabs on what its users are up to. Whenever a user opens an app, the tablet takes a screenshot. These screenshots are then available for viewing in another app, but they can't be deleted.

      https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg74vn/heres-north-koreas-totalitarian-android-tablet

    7. Re:Google is the better product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google has also track record of tracking people even if they explicitly told them not to.

    8. Re:Google is the better product by azcoyote · · Score: 1

      I really want to try out an Amazon device. I have a third-party Google Home and it is pretty disappointing. Google refuses to update the firmware, so it doesn't do broadcast and several other things. I can't use it to take notes (other than useless grocery lists), schedule appointments, send texts, etc. I would hope that Amazon's third-party integration would give it more useful features. Right now my Google Home is mostly a glorified music player.

      And worst of all, I can only play my songs by uploading every single one to Google Play Music. In doing so, it takes forever but doesn't actually upload the songs, but simply replaces them with their own versions of the same song--which sometimes are not quite right. Then I have to re-upload all of the same songs under my wife's account so that it will let her play music. Then I try to do the same for my daughter, and find out that you can only do it twice from the same PC. And then half the time my wife asks it to play toddler music, and it starts playing gangster rap or some such.

      --
      Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
    9. Re:Google is the better product by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

      Understood but its not Google's fault that the device doesn't get new firmware - that's the fault of device maker. I explicitly avoid non-Google home devices for this very reason.

    10. Re:Google is the better product by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      I bought Google Mini to test and immediately ordered replacements for Echo. It is just so much better at usability and responses that it's kind of embarrassing for the Echo. I only use echo now for adding things to my Prime shopping list.

  4. I'd buy more, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd buy a few more, but it's been almost a year since I purchased my first one and they STILL DON'T FUCKING SUPPORT GSUITE CALENDARS. For some reason they support free gmail and google calendar accounts, but that's it.

    Google continues their tradition of fucking over *paying* clients.

  5. More shipped because of Walmart by renegade600 · · Score: 3

    The biggest reason for the higher shipments is because the google home is sold through Walmart. Every Walmart store I have been in has a large supply of them on display. Makes it easier to buy on impulse.

    The closest place for me to get an echo is about an hour away. I guess Amazon do not want to sell their devices through their major competitor. You cannot even get the echo on Walmarts website.

    1. Re:More shipped because of Walmart by CptLoRes · · Score: 3

      Did you read the article? Only 16% of the 449% Goggle Home sales growth, came from the US. The main problem with Amazon Echo, is that when I go to Amazon and try to order one, it simply says "This item does not ship to ". Simply because I do not live in a English speaking country. Never mind if I wanted a English speaking Echo or not.

    2. Re:More shipped because of Walmart by renegade600 · · Score: 1

      Walmart is in 28 countries, not just the US.

    3. Re:More shipped because of Walmart by quarrel · · Score: 1

      So? He's still correct.

      This isn't because of Walmart.

  6. Saturation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An absolute shit-tonne of Echos are already sold. They've saturated Prime houses - of course the Home overtook.

  7. Why not just use a phone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Google Home is basically just an interface for Google's search which supports voice input. And Android can even receive commands to open apps and such. The same features could be added to a TV player/Chromecast-like device, so a dedicated speaker isn't necessary. It would even be an improvement since visual apps could be controlled.

    Amazon and Apple's own smart speakers are the same, but they don't have quite as robust search portal as Google. It makes slightly more sense why Amazon would need one, though, since Siri is accessible via iPhones.

    1. Re:Why not just use a phone? by renegade600 · · Score: 1

      the phone does not have the microphones as the home and echo does so it is tough to use across the room. You are right, the biggest problem with Amazon Echos is their search BUT since google owns their own search it is easier for them to set things up for their device to find things easier and better.

  8. The spy in your home. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    These "connected speaker" systems are like having a spy in your home, one that listens (and can record) all of the time. Sorry, no thanks, not for me. Not that I do anything or say anything to be ashamed of, I am a very private person. Basically these systems are a microphone in your home that is never off. They cannot function if they are not listening all the time. And you never really know whether what they hear is recorded or not, or who may be listening!

    I once wrote a letter to the local paper titled "The Spy In Your Pocket". It was about cell phones and how they can be used to spy on and track their owners. Much of the same applies to these "connected speaker"systems.

    1. Re:The spy in your home. by renegade600 · · Score: 2

      what's another spy :-) homes these days have so many different devices that can spy on you there is no way around it.

    2. Re: The spy in your home. by Albanach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why do we have these blatant untruths? Sure, these devices listen all the time - for a wake word. The idea that they're always listening to your conversation and always recording are patently false. My network usage confirms this. Unless Google and Amazon are shipping these with LTE modems and are paying for the bandwidth requirements of uploading tens of millions of simultaneous audio streams?

    3. Re: The spy in your home. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you really that dumb? Remember how Volkswagen cars could detect that they were being emissions tested and behave themselves?

      No, don't start trying to school me on network monitoring. I get that the device can't know it's being monitored if you do it right. But what it could do is send captured voice traffic at a later time, or during a period of time when you know it's supposed to be sending traffic. You know, unless your super sleuth skills allow you to decrypt what it sends and all.

      Of course, what I just said assumes that Google and Amazon are the ones doing the spying. You know it's not necessary to actually spy on everyone all the time. You're correct in that would take enough resources to even give them headaches (for now). No, the problem with planting a microphone in someone's house is planting the microphone in someone's house. Once the hardware is present, interesting possibilities arise. For instance, it could have a hidden 'spy on me' mode that the three letter agencies compelled these companies to put in that can be selectively turned on. Think I'm crazy--OnStar has done this and gotten legally slapped around for it already. Of course, people who predicted that ahead of time were in fact labeled as crazy, weren't they?

      This scenario is far more likely though: these devices are made in foreign countries and programmed doubtless by the cheapest "developers" corporate cretins can get away with. That means they'll have lots and lots of vulnerabilities in them. Vulnerabilities that the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. have likely already found out about through extensive testing, disassembly, etc. So when they want to spy on you they'll just attack your device directly and you won't know a thing because your 'network usage' test was done when you first got the thing and you got complacent, didn't you? Never mind that even a simple web page has all kinds of dumb, useless calls to all kinds of crap that nobody knows what it is and so it's really easy to sneak something evil into the middle of all that traffic.

      Even my desktop computer has no microphone except one that I plug in when I want it in use. My notebook has the microphone driver removed and the camera covered. There's no way I will deliberately allow a microphone that someone else controls to be permanently mounted where I live. Nothing's perfect, but the attitude you display is exactly the one they want.

    4. Re: The spy in your home. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even my desktop computer has no microphone except one that I plug in when I want it in use. My notebook has the microphone driver removed and the camera covered. There's no way I will deliberately allow a microphone that someone else controls to be permanently mounted where I live. Nothing's perfect, but the attitude you display is exactly the one they want.

      So the government hacks your computer, turns your speaker out into a mic in and uses your speakers to monitor you, while they are at it they silently install a driver for your microphone when you click on your conspiracy website that you vpn into a vpn to access on the dark web. Meanwhile everything you type is sent to the NSA via webpage calls and you'll never know. There is a house on your block with a laser pointed at your windows to monitor your conversations and sell them to the NSA and Google.

      Seriously, if you don't think that everything you do isn't tracked, then you are delusional, however if you think that everything that is tracked is there to frame you for some NSA/FBI/CIA/HLS/ICE scheme, then you are delusional. Credit card companies track your spending and locations, banks do the same, the cable company, your isp, and your phone companies do it too.

      I hate to break it to you, but your privacy has long been stripped away, slowly and systematically. You might as well reap what little benefit comes from it while companies still acknowledge that you want something in return for it.

      Anyways congrats to you for not buying a Echo/Home/any other smart device.

      Captcha: Guardian

    5. Re: The spy in your home. by Albanach · · Score: 1

      No, don't start trying to school me on network monitoring. I get that the device can't know it's being monitored if you do it right. But what it could do is send captured voice traffic at a later time, or during a period of time when you know it's supposed to be sending traffic. You know, unless your super sleuth skills allow you to decrypt what it sends and all.

      What it cannot do is send voice without using data. And voice data, even compressed, is pretty large. More than enough to be noticeable. In a home with music, kids and pets, daytime noise is almost constant. The actual volume of data would be huge if it was transferring everything it heard. And there's no way it's powerful enough to filter out background and only transmit relevant communications.

      A 48kbps audio stream over a month would take about 15GB. It's easy to see if a device transmits even a hundredth of that. Place a Google Home next to a TV playing CNN 24/7 and it doesn't suddenly start transmitting 15GB per month.

      As I said in my original post, it is easy to confirm that a Google Home or an Amazon Echo does not record/transmit everything it hears unless it's broken.

    6. Re: The spy in your home. by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 1

      Sure, these devices listen all the time - for a wake word. The idea that they're always listening to your conversation and always recording are patently false.

      ...until you become a "person of interest" in which case they remotely switch the microphone on all the time.

      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    7. Re:The spy in your home. by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Apparently not private enough.
      Me ordering Alexa is the only talking done in my house.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  9. Suckers Quantified by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That comes to 9.5 million per quarter. A quarter of 365/4 = 91.25 days = 131400 minutes, results in 9.5e6/131400 = 72.3 per minute. This finally provides some hard evidence to conclusively disprove the old hypothesis that only one sucker is born each minute. Real world data clearly indicates that this superstition was nearly two orders of magnitude off.

  10. So what? by devslash0 · · Score: 1

    Neither will ever be allowed inside my house for privacy reasons.

  11. I have both devices and IMHO Google is way better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The integration of Google home/assistant with the other Google services that I use (maps, voice, Android TV, nest) is amazing. The ability to properly respond to the bombardment of questions from my kids as well as provide relevant follow up to our questions is far better than Amazon.
    We have stopped using the Echo dot about 2 months ago and while I am sure that Amazon has improved the capabilities, so has Google (at a rapid pace).
    Whoever has all the data will be be there able to train an AI.....so far, Google IMHO is winning.

  12. Ogle Home vs Always-on Lecho by epine · · Score: 2

    Closet exhibitionists, rejoice!

    I mean, you always could arrange a dozen sheet music stands around the old four-poster, and use that to display a panoply of two dozen interrelated positions (in the Kama Sutra Unbound all leaves are perforated)—but the net effect was a bit intimidating.

    Some technologies really do improve on the old state of the art.

  13. You stupid niggers like & use my work... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your software is just fine - well written, functional... I'm going to continue using the Host File Engine by mmell February 17, 2017

    Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising and malvertising is quite valid - by JazzLad April 20, 2016

    his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant August 10 2015

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    I like your host file system by Karmashock September 09 2015

    that APK guy, I use his host file by rogoshen1 Tuesday March 03, 2015

    I personally use a HOSTS file blocker produced from a genius called APK by 110010001000 October 27 2017

    * Best part = Linux 64-bit model's faster/more efficient (2x work in 1/2 the time)

    APK

    P.S.=> For a faster/safer/more reliable internet. Even you stupid níggers can benefit from my greatness. God's gift to Slashdot will NEVER be silenced... apk

  14. BAN BUMP STOCKS... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & you do-nothing soyboy "ne'er-do-wells" are too COWARDLY and EFFEMINATE to ban bump stocks. This would be REAL SECURITY that would put an end to mass shootings. The estrogen in soy milk makes all of you too cowardly to BAN BUMP STOCKS.

    * The NRA is supported by George Soros, the Russian government, Jews, and their allies in the Vatican. The Vatican has MEDDLED in our elections to support Hillary Clinton and OPPOSE any form of GUN CONTROL. They work with the Jewish elites in the United States to add SOY MILK to our foods, containing ESTROGEN and making our men EFFEMINATE.

    A ban on bump stocks would have STOPPED many recent MASS SHOOTINGS including today's Madden tournament shooting, the Waffle House shooting, Las Vegas, Parkland, and so many other places. It is TRULY PATHETIC that you SOYBOY WEASELS insist on keeping bump stocks legal. A ban on bump stocks will STOP MASS SHOOTINGS just like my HOSTS FILE ENGINE is a cure-all for INTERNET SECURITY.

    Losers like Coren22, arth1, Zontar The Mindless, AssFux (lol), and so many more of you UNIDENTIFIABLE FAKE NAME losers attack me relentlessly for telling the TRUTH. It takes a REAL MAN like me to continually dust all of you you weasels, while you LIE and ACCUSE me of evil criminal acts. You are INCAPABLE of accepting the TRUTH that BUMP STOCKS MUST BE BANNED.

    APK

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  15. Spy who loved me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Spies like us. What comes next is the subliminal messages?

  16. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  17. How do you do, fellow kids? by Blaede · · Score: 1

    How about we listen to a music band while we operate our skate contraptions?

  18. imagine... by hrm · · Score: 1

    ... a Beowulf cluster of those!

    Oh wait, wrong century.. Sorry.

  19. Tiny House by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wanted to get in on the craze!

  20. Stop IMPERSONATING me... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Grow up, get on topic & get a life (for your sake @ least).

    APK

    P.S.=> Seriously... apk

  21. Stop IMPERSONATING me... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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    APK

    P.S.=> Seriously... apk