Smart Speaker Ownership Reaches 60 Million U.S. Adults

New data from the latest installment of The Smart Audio Report from NPR and Edison Research confirms that smart speaker adoption continues to grow in the U.S. with 60M adults A18+ (24% of the population) now owning a smart speaker. And with spoken word audio listening up 20% from 2014, cutting into time spent with music, it's clear the audio landscape is changing dramatically – driven by technology advancements and content preferences alike.

Altice USA, the American arm of the French telecommunications conglomerate, unveiled Altice Amplify, an Alexa-powered smart speaker developed in collaboration with French connected-speaker pioneers Devialet. Directly targeted at the booming North-America smart speaker market, the Altice Amplify introduces "an intelligent, high-fidelity home speaker that powers the connected home." Of course, Altice didn't discard the audio quality argument and worked with Devialet to design a true high-fidelity system.

Audioburst Auto is an app created for the Android Auto platform, designed to provide expertly curated playlists, a personalized news feed, and search capabilities to drivers. Having until now promoted the platform and API for developers, Audioburst Auto is the company's first consumer-oriented product. All features are built using Audioburst’s own short-format approach and are completely accessible via voice commands.