A new report from International Data Corp (IDC) said on Thursday that Amazon Echo led the Indian smart speaker market with a 59% share in 2018, followed by Google Home with a 39% unit share.
According to IDC’s “India Monthly Smart Speaker Device Tracker,” 753,000 units were shipped to the country in 2018.
Google Home Mini outsold all other smart speaker models, emerging as a top seller.
However, the IDC said in a statement that the Amazon Echo Dot, with its second and third-generation models, was the most dominant series, with four out of 10 devices sold in the country.
“Though the smart speaker is a relatively young product in India, the integration of voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant in smart devices is gaining immense popularity in the country,” said Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.
The main driver of the early adoption so far is the novelty factor around this technology.
“However, it is certainly driving the shift in consumer behavior and accelerating the adoption of voice interfaces in India,” Singh added.
Smart speakers were first introduced to the Indian market in the fourth quarter of 2017 when Amazon launched its Echo range of devices nationwide.
Since then, more than half a dozen companies have launched their devices in this category.
“Many Indians are using voice assistants for the first time in their smartphones — some even using them in their feature phones — now with more localized and enhanced use cases, they want to use voice interfaces in more and more devices,” added Navkendar Singh, Research Director, IDC India.
When it comes to the preferred channel for smart speakers, online channels, including e-tailers and vendors’ own websites, dominated sales, with 55 percent of the smart speakers sold in this channel, said IDC.
