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

Alert! Will the Cable Eco-System Begin To Crash Tomorrow?

And, oh yeah, there are already quite a number of STBs that allow for streaming content that includes programming from so-called broadcast and cable networks as well as the major streaming services su...

Prediction: Wi-Fi-Cell Hybrid Service Is Coming

As always, timing is everything. Research published in July by Parks Associates suggests U.S. mobile carriers are shifting their focus from ARPU growth to churn management as new smartphone users beco...

Netflix Need Not Fear New Amazon Prime Spinoff Service

For those who think Amazon has the clout to steal away Netflix subscribers, the logic there isn't too easy to follow: the $9 price point for the new service simply isn't compelling enough to siphon aw...

Providers Fine-tune Their Business Models As A La Carte Streaming Services Proliferate

Those who prefer streaming video-on-demand aren’t shy about sharing passwords. About 6 percent of U.S. broadband households use an over-the-top video service paid by someone living outside of the hous...