Smart Sound and Gateway Market - Growth, Trends, Forecasts (2020-2025)

The global market for industrial films is expected to register a CAGR of over 29.24% during the forecast period. The major factor driving the market studied is the increasing demand for speakers and headphones.

- The global demand for smart speakers is growing at an exponential rate, owing to the growing access to smartphones and high-speed internet. In 2019, the demand for smart speakers built with virtual voice assistants was significantly higher in English-speaking nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, since then, the demand shifted to other non-English speaking nations, such as China, Germany, and India.
- Among the overall demand for digital voice assistants, overall market demand was led by Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant, owing to their penetration in the smartphone market. However, in terms of smart speakers, the market was led by Amazon’s Alexa. Alexa commands a prominent share of the smart speaker market, owing to the growing product queries made via voice searches.
- The US market currently commands a prominent share of the demand, owing to the growing awareness and increasing compatible smart home devices with a virtual assistant. Furthermore, according to a study by Loup Ventures, the US smart speaker household penetration in 2019 was valued at 35%, and it is expected to reach 75% by 2025. Thus, the US is one of the major focal points for prominent vendors.
- Smart speakers are expected to be the primary control devices of various smart home devices over the coming years. With this in mind, various prominent vendors in the market are looking to spread their presence in the segment. Furthermore, over the coming years, the smart speakers with a display are expected to gain traction, as they can offer a centralized platform to control various other devices.
- In addition to this, the global demand for hearable is gaining traction, with growing consumer’s propensity toward using headphones. JBL, Sony, and Bose are the top vendors of hearable devices across the world, and various smartphone vendors are partnering with these firms to enhance their hearables offerings.
- Since the outbreak of Covid-19, people are increasingly spending time at their homes; during the initial days of quarantine, consumers spent nearly 3-4 months confined to their homes, resulting in increased media consumption and internet usage across the world, especially in the North America, Europe, and Asia-pacific regions. Owing to an increased usage of the voice assistants and smart speakers, the shipments increased during the first quarter of 2020 for vendors such as Amazon, Google, and Apple, with Amazon maintaining its top position and Google retaining its second position.

Key Market Trends
Google Assistant to witness a Significant Market Share

- With google assistant’s accessibility to users spanning in more than 90 countries, it has been assisting over 500 million people every month to get things done across smart speakers and smart displays, phones, TVs, and cars, to name a few. The company has been benefiting from its mandatory availability across all the android smartphones. Additionally, its early advancements in speech recognition have enabled a better understanding of vernacular languages, and thus a wider acceptability of the same.
- Some of the current key trends that the Google assistance has been banking on or is expected to feature later in 2020, are based on personalization, specialized end-use applications, and security, to name a few. For instance, in June 2020, the company announced that all Google Assistant-enabled devices would be able to tell who is talking to them.
- With consumer requirements shifting, it is also reflective of how Google Assistant is being used. Based on the same, Google Assistance has been on a continuous improvement spree to help people get accurate information on Search and Maps. In addition, it leveraged Duplex conversational technology to contact businesses and update over half a million business listings.
- More recently, Google and French retail chain, Carrefour launched a voice-based grocery shopping service. Customers need to use Google Assistant to search for and purchase groceries using their personal profile. The voice shopping arrangement is reflective of retailers’ larger e-commerce strategy, by investing EUR 2.8 billion across 2020.

Market Share of China to increase significantly

- The high rate of product innovation in the studied market, low manufacturing cost achieved by local vendors, and increased domestic consumption are some of the major factors making China as one of the major emerging countries in the global smart sound and gateway market globally. The market vendors are in the country are offering a wide range of products, mostly at an affordable price, which is further fueling the adoption rate in the country.
- According to Qualcomm, in 2019, the Chinese consumers looked for better sound quality, ability to play at loud volumes without distortion, voice assistant enabled long standby hours on battery, and affordable price and the Chinese smart speakers fit best for these demands. In China, speakers, such as Alibaba Tmall Genie (connectivity: Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 4.0) and Xiaomi Xiao Ai (connectivity: Bluetooth Mesh Gateway technology) nearly account for more than half of the smart speakers share in the Chinese market.
- Advanced technologies such as AI-assisted devices are an emerging trend in the’ market. For instance, in September 2019, Xiaomi has launched two new AI-powered smart speakers under the XiaoAI series. The speakers are enabled with Hi-Fi audio processors and feature DTS audio tuning along with a 360-degree sound field. According to the company, these smart speakers can also act as a smart hub for smart home appliances and can be used to control up to 5,000 smart home products. Recently, in 2020, Xiaomi also announced that its smart speaker shipments had crossed 22 million units to date.
- The establishment of 5G network and advancement in Natural Language Processing (NLP) are further supporting the demand for smart sound and gateway in the country.

Competitive Landscape
The speaker and hearables market is witnessing an intense rivalry among prominent vendors, such as Amazon, Google, Apple, and many other vendors. Here, vendors are increasingly expanding their device capabilities, accuracy, ability to connect to compatible devices, and enhancing their abilities. The product innovation of leading companies is constant and contributes to the high level of competition.

- Jul 2020- Amazon.com announced a slew of new features for developers who want to write Alexa skills. The team released 31 new features.
- May 2020- Alibaba Group introduced four new smart AI products,namely, the 10-inch home smart screen CC10, the main sound quality of the smart speaker X5, cost-effective Sugar 2 product, and a "velvet blue version" smart beauty mirror for the female users.

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