What happened and who won?
That seemingly shocking contraction comes as less of a surprise when you realize that Alibaba, Baidu, and Xiaomi are three of the top six global vendors. These companies are almost entirely reliant on domestic manufacturing and domestic sales, both of which proved problematic between January and March 2022 due to “unprecedented resurgences of COVID-19 that shut down daily life for many Chinese” people.
Practically everyone’s in trouble now
With many more models under their belts, Amazon and Google are sitting at 28.2 and 17.2 percent shares respectively after fairly modest single-digit growth figures compared to the opening quarter of last year.
Will the likes of the Echo Show 15 truly catch on anytime soon?
In other words, the amazing and somewhat unexpected success story of the HomePod mini might be short-lived, with its manufacturer’s growth likely to “slow significantly” in 2023. It remains to be seen if Apple will try to ride this wave of global popularity… somehow and release a new smart speaker by then, although with absolutely no rumors on that front, we highly doubt such a device is anywhere on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the main focus for Amazon and Google going forward is expected to be on “upselling additional devices to consumers or encouraging them to update older models”, as the existing user base is unlikely to expand much further.
Speaking of smart displays, the low-cost second-gen Echo Show 5 dominated that sub-category in Q1 2022, followed by Google’s 7-inch Nest Hub and the second-gen Echo Show 8 to essentially prove that the market is not ready to embrace pricier models with large touchscreens yet.
