Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) will reportedly be joining Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Alphabet, Inc (GOOG, GOOGL) and Apple, Inc. (AAPL) in an increasingly crowded smart speaker market as soon as this summer. According to a new report by DigiTimes, industry experts say Facebook plans to launch its Aloha and Fiona smart speakers by July.
The latest reports come after Bloomberg said in August that Facebook is developing at least two speakers and voice assistants. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly programmed his own personal digital assistant, Jarvis, to operate the smart appliances in his own home.
The home assistant market may still be in its fledgling stages, but Facebook is already behind the curve. Apple just recently launched its HopePod smart speaker earlier this month and took heat from some analysts for missing the critical holiday shopping season. Amazon’s Echo devices and Alphabet’s Google Home speakers were two of the hottest-selling holiday gift ideas this year.
According to Statista, Amazon has taken a commanding lead in the opening innings of the smart speaker game. Prior to the launch of the HomePod, 15.4 percent of U.S. internet users reportedly owned an Echo device, more than twice as many as any other smart speaker. The Google Home was a distant second with 7.7 percent market share, and no other devices had more than 2.5 percent penetration.
“While Facebook is late to the game on the smart speaker battle with Amazon and Alexa leading the pack, this is a crucial launch for Zuckerberg & Co. as they look to get a piece of this $30 billion pie over the next three years,” GBH Insights head of technology research Daniel Ives says. “The smart speaker launch is a good move for Facebook as it represents the next leg of monetizing its massive user base.”
Bank of America analyst Justin Post says Facebook, Amazon and the other players have a lot riding on the smart speaker business.
“Voice-based device sales (smart speakers) continue to gain momentum, and we see voice search as potentially the most disruptive transition for the internet since mobile,” Post says. “Needless to say, Google’s query share dominance faces a new competitive threat if device makers have an advantage for capturing voice activity.”
GBH has…
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