‘Much Work to Do’ for Amazon to Be Global Force in Smart Speakers, Says Futuresource

Despite the “hype” about Echo, Amazon “isn’t focusing all its device efforts on its smart speakers,” blogged Jack Wetherill, Futuresource senior market analyst-home electronics. The Alexa voice assistant “is now also standard” on Amazon’s Fire TVs and tablets, and last week’s announcement of the Fire TV Cube (see 1806070044) is the “latest development” in Amazon’s “multi-device strategy” to position itself as the key go-to “facilitator” in the smart home, he said Wednesday. Though Amazon remains the undisputed “category leader” in smart speakers, “Echo sales are still heavily skewed towards the USA,” with only 13 percent of its 2017 Echo sales coming from elsewhere, said Wetherill. “Fire tablets outsold Echo speakers internationally in 2017 by a ratio of over 4 to 1.” That shows Amazon “has much work to do in order to become the same driving force internationally” in smart speakers as it does in the U.S., he wrote. Thursday, Amazon didn’t comment.