Worldwide Home Audio Market Research Shows Growth of 25%

Futuresource Consulting recently updated its research on the worldwide home audio market. On its latest quarterly report on "Worldwide Home Audio - A Landscape of Stark Contrasts and Opportunities: Pricing, Shipments, Regions and Brands," Futuresource reveals that 'home audio' shipments, including wireless speakers, soundbars and hi-fi systems, grew by 25%, accumulating a total of 27 million units during January to March 2018.

Apple has confirmed that its latest mobile operating system iOS 11.4 is now available introducing the much anticipated AirPlay 2 updated technology, which enables Apple's own smart speaker to be configured as stereo pairs and to work in multi-room mode. AirPlay 2 will be also supported by several other audio manufacturers. Apple also confirmed that HomePod will be available in Canada, France and Germany, starting June 18.

In previous editorials, I have highlighted the important role of smart speakers in promoting the user case for voice personal assistants (VPAs) and voice recognition applications - given the ideal combination of far-field microphone arrays with a complete audio ecosystem that encompasses digital signal processing, acoustic echo cancelation, noise cancellation, and many other technologies. This opens significant opportunities for the audio industry, given we understand the challenges.

Market research and consulting company, Futuresource Consulting recently released a new report in the consumer electronics CE space covering the emerging voice personal assistants (VPAs) category and smart speakers. The report highlights that we are the beginning of a wider market transformation, with voice personal assistants (VPAs) at the heart of a new CE land grab.

We are witnessing a pivotal moment for the audio industry with the prominence of far-field voice recognition and connected speakers now top of the mind for consumers. In the aftermath of Apple's recent HomePod speaker announcement, the home audio experience, by itself, was confirmed as the key selling argument, with its potential as an interface for interaction with consumer electronic devices and services, paving the way for the Smart Home.

The audio industry was once again shaken to its foundations by Apple's announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017. The product updates and sneak peeks made at this Apple Special Event, on June 5, 2017, were extremely rich in surprising technology revelations, even though its implications might not become clear until a few weeks or months later. After all, the WWDC conference - a developer's conference - is traditionally where Apple builds the foundations for what will be its underlying short-term/long-term strategies, serving mainly to motivate developers and strategic partners.

Apple's opening keynote for its Worldwide Developers Conference 2017 (WWDC17) at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, was a swirl of long expected announcements, wrapped in surprising underlying technology revelations. Among the many announcements was the preview of Apple's new home music speaker with built-in-far-field voice recognition powered by Apple Siri, the HomePod. As expected, the design is a powerful combination of electroacoustic mastery, digital processing and smart connectivity.