Smart Speakers Continue to Drive Growing Home Audio Market, Futuresource Reports

Global home audio equipment shipments grew 20 percent year on year in Q4, said Futuresource Friday. Amazon topped the leader board, taking the post from Harman, which dropped to second, but Harman’s strong performance in Q1 and Q3 pushed it to top audio vendor for the year, said analyst Guy Hammett. Global home audio shipments reached nearly 59 million shipments in Q4, representing $6.8 billion. Integrated voice assistant product shipments climbed 42 percent in the quarter from 28 percent growth in the year-ago quarter. Smart speakers are driving audio demand in developed markets, up 42 percent in North America and 73 percent in Western Europe, it said. North America saw 12 percent growth across all audio product segments.