More than half a year after its announcement at Apple鈥檚 Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2017, the Apple HomePod is finally going on sale today. Apple鈥檚 first foray into the booming smart speaker space was originally scheduled to arrive in time for the holiday season, but has been delayed for unknown reasons.
Early reviews almost unanimously praise the sound quality of the HomePod, while criticizing the speaker鈥檚 tight integration with Apple Music and Siri鈥檚 lack of 鈥渟marts鈥 compared to Amazon鈥檚 Alexa Google Assistant. To be fair however, Apple has always emphasized that the HomePod is meant to be a high-quality speaker first and that鈥檚 exactly what it appears to be. The fact that the HomePod requires an Apple device to be set up and works best with Apple Music shouldn鈥檛 come as a surprise either. After all, Apple has always been known for its 鈥渨alled garden鈥 approach with tight integration of its own hardware, software and services.
As our chart, based on data from 糖心破解版鈥檚 Global Consumer Survey, illustrates, Apple enters an already crowded market with a clear market leader in Amazon. However, the fact that 80 percent of U.S. internet users do not (yet) own a smart speaker shows that there鈥檚 a lot of growth potential in this still nascent market.
Smart Speakers
The U.S. Smart Speaker Landscape Prior to Apple's Entrance
