Gaming Headsets Lead the Way as Accessories Break the 3$ Billion Barrier

The gaming accessories market continues its ascent, with 76 million units shipped worldwide in 2018, according to a new industry report from Futuresource Consulting. That’s an increase of 22% on 2017, generating a retail value of US$3.1 billion from a combination of headsets, speakers, keyboards and mice. Last year’s headset growth won’t be repeated this year, with Futuresource forecasts pointing to a minor decline in volumes for 2019 due to cyclical hardware trends for games consoles.

Baidu, a company known as China's search engine is investing heavily in its own voice engine, artificial intelligence (AI), and even hardware technologies, following Google's footsteps. Earlier this year, Baidu acquired Raven, a Beijing-based smart home startup, and the first results of that investment have now been revealed with two voice-activated speakers that run on the company's own AI platform. The design was the result of a cooperation with a Swedish start-up, Teenage Engineering.