Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Alexa Leads Way In Ever-Growing Smart Speaker Segment.

Alexa is certainly making herself at home. Growth of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home have more than doubled over the last year alone. In fact, a new smart home research report from Parks Associates reveals that the adoption rate of smart speakers grew from 5% of U.S. broadband households in Q4 2015 to 12% in Q4 2016.

This is driven in part by continued improvements in machine learning and natural language processing and the prevalence of portable devices, the study says.

In addition, the study shows that a slightly higher percentage of U.S. broadband households (56%) want to use voice-activated personal assistance to control smart home devices compared to those who want to use voice to control entertainment devices (55%). Voice-based personal assistants such as Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana are driving the interest. And estimates show that 15.3 million Amazon Echo devices—Echo, Dot and Tap—were sold in 2016.

From the article "Alexa Leads Way In Ever-Growing Smart Speaker Segment."

Previously In The News

How Hulu Is Ramping Up To Win And Keep Subscribers

Luring and keeping customers is becoming harder as the online streaming market gets more crowded and subscribers, freed from cable television’s contract model, can cancel service with a click of the m...

Why Walmart Pay Doesn't Measure Up To CVS, Starbucks And Taco Bell

Indeed, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and even Taco Bell have all associated significant sales boosts with their mobile payment apps. Now major retailers outside of food service are testing the technology...

Most Consumer Electronics Buyers Consider Only One Brand

The majority of consumer electronics (CE) buyers, 71%, only consider one brand when shopping, according to new consumer research from Parks Associates Opens a New Window. . In some categories the numb...

Why Apple's iPhone Is Too Big To Fail

The number one concern about Apple is how future versions of the iPhone will sell. Will the company be able to add enough features and functionality that current owners will want to upgrade? Will Andr...