Smart Speaker Shipments in the Nordic Countries Reached 900k in 2019
Data from Strategy Analytics show that smart speaker shipments in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden reached 900,000 in 2019. That figure is up sharply from shipments of only about 200,000 in 2018. These figures indicate impressive growth and smart speaker interest in countries that collectively claim only about 20 million in population. Strategy Analytics estimates the household installed base for smart speakers these Nordic countries is about 6%. Finland and Iceland were not included in the analysis since none of the leading smart speaker makers have offerings with language localization for these countries.
Google Dominates
Google Home (a.k.a Google Nest) dominates smart speaker market share in the Nordic countries accounting for over 80% of all devices shipped according to David Watkins, director of connected home devices at Strategy Analytics. Google Assistant is even more dominant considering that about 15% market share was commanded by device makers that utilize Google’s voice assistant with their hardware. This is driven by the fact that Google is essentially unchallenged in providing a voice assistant for smart speakers that recognizes the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish languages. Apple’s Siri recognizes each of these languages on smartphones but they are not supported today on the HomePod smart speaker.
Watkins estimates that Amazon’s Echo smart speaker market share is no more than 5% and that most users of the devices in the region are accessing them in English or one of the European languages supported by Alexa. Amazon has less of an online shopping presence in the Nordics than in other regions so the likelihood of near-term Alexa localization for these countries is relatively low. That means Google Assistant is likely to dominate market share in the coming years. It also suggests there may be an opening for an assistant optimized for the unique cultural characteristics of the region similar to the recent announcement of an assistant for Estonia.
You can learn more about Strategy Analytics and its data and forecasting services at StrategyAnalytics.com.
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