China Will Surpass the United States in Voice Control Front End Shipments in 2020

Chinese smart home players are poised to parlay strength in smart home voice control into global influence. According to ABI Research, China will surpass the United States in voice control front end shipments by 15 million units at the end of 2020. Overall, the Asia-Pacific smart home installed base will grow from 66 million in 2020 to 316 million (a 30% CAGR) between 2020 and 2026, states the global tech market advisory firm. In the same period, the smart home installed base in the United States will grow a mere 3.6%.

The smart speaker market will grow by 35% this year, according to SAR Insight & Consulting’s Latest Digital Assistant Platform Forecast DATAbase, with shipments reaching 92 million. Amazon remains the market leader, but its smart speaker market share has declined and now represents approximately a third (33%) of the total volume anticipated in 2019. Total voice software unit shipments are expected to increase significantly to 2024.

Sales of Chinese language smart speakers in the first quarter of 2019 grew by more than 500% year-on-year, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. This lifted global Q1 sales to 25.9 million, a 168% increase on the same period in 2018. The global market shares of Chinese brands therefore rose much closer to Amazon and Google, although the US giants remained in first and second place respectively. Strategy Analytics has now increased its forecast for full-year 2019 global shipments by 10% to 147.7 million units.

Smart devices have proliferated across everyday life for Chinese people, offering considerable opportunities for global companies operating within the AI space – specifically focused on the voice assistant market. According to the latest report from SAR Insight & Consulting – China Voice Market – the average Chinese consumer has become much more positive about the benefits of owning connected devices helping to drive greater interest in the interactive voice functionality.

Sensory, the originator of wake words for personal assistants, raised the performance bar for always-listening wake word and speech recognition with significant upgrades to the embedded AI in its sixth generation of TrulyHandsfree, boosting the technology's already industry-leading wake word performance and accuracy by more than 65 percent. The new solution introduces upgraded turn-key voice interface solutions for devices of all shapes, sizes and power requirements.

Market research firm Futuresource Consulting announced the latest edition of its "Voice Assistants in Consumer Electronics" report. Voice Assistants (VAs) are being integrated into an increasing number and variety of connected consumer devices in multiple markets and are on course to develop as a major user interface over the next 2-3 years, according to this latest report, which leverages new industry and end-user research to assess the size and shape of the market at a worldwide and regional level.