Home Audio Products Achieve Highest Year-on-Year Growth Rate

Futuresource Consulting announced the availability of its latest Home Audio Tracking Report with smart speakers continuing to drive the market followed by home automation, immersive smart sound bars and smart displays. In the company's global Home Audio quarterly market analysis and commentary, Futuresource confirmed that smart speakers achieved a 53% growth since Q4 of 2018. Until now heavily concentrated in English and Chinese speaker markets, smart speakers are starting to expand to other language markets.

Yandex, a Russian technology company that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning, has incorporated Fraunhofer’s upHear Voice Quality Enhancement technology into its first smart speaker, enabling the device to accurately hear voice commands issued from anywhere in a room. This is the first smart speaker powered by Alice, the first virtual assistant designed to serve the needs of Russian users, which was initially offered in Yandex’s iOS and Android apps.