Amazon Alexa Led US Smart Speaker Market 'Correction' in 2021: Omdia

Q4 smart speaker shipments fell 64.7% in the U.S. across all three voice platforms in a market “correction,” reported Omdia Wednesday. Amazon Alexa speaker shipments plunged 79% year on year, Google Assistant speakers were off 39.4%, and Apple HomePod mini shipments fell 34.6%, it said.

Google Assistant speakers outshipped Alexa speakers 5.1 million to 4.3 million in Q4, with Google gaining on Alexa in share. Amazon’s share of the smart speaker market dropped from 64.9% to 38.7% year on year in the quarter, while Google’s grew from 27.3% to 46.9%. Apple’s 1.58 million smart speaker shipments in the quarter doubled its share of the category to 14.3%.

For the year, smart speaker sales tumbled 29.2% on a “sharp drop” in Amazon Echo shipments, Omdia said. Amazon shipments fell 51.7% to 21.9 million, narrowing Amazon’s lead over Google in the category; Google shipments gained 2.3% year on year to 20.3 million. Apple HomePod mini shipments gained 51.3% year on year; it doubled market share to 15.1% behind Google (40.8%) and Amazon (44.1%).

Omdia analyst Blake Kozak cited “altered consumer buying habits” during the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in atypical 2020 sales. "2020 should be viewed as an extreme outlier in terms of smart speaker penetration,” Kozak said, saying 2021 smart speaker market size and growth is on par with 2019.

About 14 million smart speakers with a display shipped in 2021, down from 17.5 million in 2020, Omdia said. While growth slowed in 2021, the U.S. market for display-based smart speakers doubled from 2019, it said. Omdia expects display-based smart speakers to continue to take more share of the overall smart speaker market, as the "voice as the new user interface trend reaches its twilight,” Kozak said. Omdia sees voice being complemented by “screens throughout the home.”

An Omdia consumer survey showed Amazon Alexa devices had a 2.5% drop in ownership/usage last year vs. 2020 while other platforms gained. Google Home smart speakers had an 8.9% increase, 12.7% for Apple HomePod and a 12.8% bump for Facebook Portal.

Despite the “rapid slowdown” in the U.S. smart speaker market from 2020 to 2021, Kozak sees a bright future for the category: "We remain bullish on the use cases and adoption rates that come with smart speakers, and these devices will remain the cornerstone of smart homes in the years to come.”