
A newer smart speaker by Baidu. Photo: VCG
China has blasted past the U.S. to be become the world’s smart-speaker capital.
Just last year, the U.S. was the global leader in shipments of the devices that listen, speak and play audio. But in the first quarter of this year, things changed dramatically.
China shipped more than double the number smart speakers than the U.S. did — 10.6 million units versus 5 million units, a Monday report from market data provider Canalys shows.
This gives China a 51% share of the global market for the quarter; thus, if the trend continues, the country will rapidly dominate the sector.
Canalys’ mobility unit VP Nicole Peng noted that China’s rapid development is largely due to local companies "pouring in a large amount of capital" and offering significant discounts for the products.
In terms of company performances, here’s how the global giants fared, in units shipped:
Amazon — 4.6 million
Google — 3.5 million
Baidu — 3.3 million
Alibaba — 3.2 million
Xiaomi — 3.2 million