Worldwide Shipments of Smart Home Devices Continue to Decline in 2023 Due to Lack of Upgrades

Global shipments of smart home devices continued to decline in the first quarter of 2023 as shipments fell 5.6% year over year to 186.0 million units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker. The lack of new models and noteworthy updates to existing smart speakers, lack of progress in voice assistants, and the transition to the Matter smart home interoperability standard are to blame.

According to Voicebot Research, smart speakers's use at home is stalling, at least in the most mature market, which is the US. According to the company's latest "Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report 2022," the US reveals a new trend on how the market is evolving. Following a fast rise to prominence in 2016, and peak adoption in 2019, momentum shifted to what Brett Kinsella, the founder and CEO of Voicebot.ai and Voicebot Research, characterizes as "The Great Stall".

New research from Parks Associates reveals a strong correlation between smart speaker and smart home device ownership — 60% of smart speaker owners and/or smart display owners own at least one smart home device, versus 34% of US broadband households overall. The firm's new research, Smart Speaker and Smart Display Market Assessment, identifies key market drivers and barriers in this product category and assesses growth in the smart speaker and display market via topline market forecasts.

Every day at audioXpress we look carefully at market intelligence updates from the leading research firms, and we normally look at data-based reports from multiple sources, trying to get a clear vision of what is happening in the markets, and how forecasts look for the audio industry. audioXpress is focused on serving the audio industry, and we are more interested in providing market intelligence than publishing subjective opinions about the measurement systems used by YouTube headphone reviewers - which seems to be the latest focus even for many competent audio publications these days.

With more than 60 million adults A18+ in the U.S. now owning a smart speaker, new research from The Smart Audio Report reveals how the outbreak of COVID-19 and quarantine measures are disrupting routines and shifting consumer behaviors. Other key findings from the Spring 2020 Report reveal that usage of voice commands in general has increased slightly since the pandemic, with 52% of voice-assistant users saying they use voice tech several times a day or nearly every day, compared to 46% before the outbreak.

The exploding popularity of smart speakers in China is confirmed by findings from the latest Strategy Analytics consumer survey. The report, 2019 Smart Speaker User Survey – China Results, found that 63% of people who do not currently use a smart speaker plan to buy one within the next year. Another 22% say they will purchase a smart speaker later on, suggesting that smart speakers overall should reach at least another 85% of the population.

The Smart Audio Report Spring 2019 is part of the industry's longest-running public research series about smart speaker consumer behavior in the U.S.. The updated research reveals how smart speaker user behavior and perceptions are evolving as owners 'settle in' with their devices and the market matures out of its introductory phase. According to the survey promoted by NPR And Edison Research, seven-in-ten smart speaker owners use their device daily despite common concerns around security and privacy, while those same factors are leading reasons non-owners have not acquired a device.