The global smart speaker market has seemingly witnessed a tectonic shift, making the Chinese manufacturer Baidu the second-largest smart speaker seller internationally, as it overtook Google to claim the second spot.
According to a new report from Canalys, the Chinese manufacturer recorded a staggering growth in Q2 2019, compared to the same period a year ago. The company saw an astounding growth of 3,700 percent, recording sales of 4.5 million units, which is a monumental rise compared to 100,000 units it sold during the same period last year.
In comparison, Google managed to achieve sales of 4.3 million units of its smart speakers, a drop of 19.8 percent as it sold 5.4 million units in Q2, 2018.
Amazon regains the top spot, recording sales of 6.6 million units of its smart speaker systems in Q2 2019. Now, this makes for a growth of 24.5 percent, compared to 4.1 million units of its Echo range of smart speakers that found buyers in Q2, 2018.
It’s also worth noting while Google and Amazon maintain an international presence, sales of Baidu smart speakers were largely restricted to the Chinese market. That said, the enormous size of the Chinese market means there’s a massive potential for Baidu to grow, given that smart speaker market in the country is still in its nascent phase.
“Local network operators’ interests on the [smart display] device category soared recently. This bodes well for Baidu as it faces little competition in the smart display category, allowing the company to dominate in the operator channel,” said Canalys Research Analyst Cynthia Chen.
Both Google and Amazon focused on international markets in Q2 2019. Reports indicate that 50 percent of Amazon’s shipments were outside the U.S in Q2, an increase of 32 percent compared to the same period last year. As for Google, 55 percent of its shipments were made outside the U.S, an increase of 42 percent compared to the same period the previous year.
The remaining top five contenders were Alibaba and Xiaomi, shipping 4.1 million and 2.8 million units respectively in Q2 2019. Meanwhile, the sales of Apple’s HomePod totaled 3.7 million units.
