Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant In Neck and Neck Fight For Smart Speaker Leadership

The Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant platforms will take an almost equal share of the global smart speaker market this year, according to the latest forecast from Strategy Analytics. Amazon Alexa had a 37.7% share of sales in 2018, but this will decline to 31.7% in 2019, while Google Assistant’s share will rise from 30.3% to 31.4%, the company predicts. Global sales of all smart speakers are expected to reach 135 million units in 2019, a growth rate of 57%.

Strategy Analytics just announced its Global Smart Speaker Q3 2018 market update, detailing vendor, shipments and installed base market share for the category by region. According to the market research firm, global smart speaker shipments grew nearly 200% year-over-year in Q3 2018 reaching 22.7 million units in the quarter. Amazon remained the top ranked smart speaker brand in the world, followed by Google and the Chinese trio of Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi who are all vying for control of their fast growing domestic market.