Survey: More than 40% of smart speaker owners stream music daily

Nearly 20% of U.S. adults now own a smart speaker, according to a survey spearheaded by Voicebot, in collaboration with PullString and RAIN Agency (not the same as RAIN News). Extrapolated, the results from its survey of more than 1,000 adults indicate that about 47.3 million people own the devices. The surveyed owners skewed more male (57.8%). Nearly two-thirds of all households said they own just one smart speaker. However, those with multiple devices number high enough that the survey’s average ownership was 1.8 smart speakers.

The Amazon Echo line has been the industry front-runner for some time, and Voicebot found that is still has a 3.5 times larger installed user base than Google. Amazon’s market share was pegged at 71.9%, while Google had 18.4% and other brands took a combined 9.7%.

Streaming music is one of the top uses of smart speakers. Just shy of 90% have ever tried streaming on the devices, while 76.2% do so monthly. It was the most frequent daily action at 41.9%. Asking a question and checking the weather were the other most frequent activities for the speakers.

The survey also looked at trends among people who don’t own smart speakers. When asked why they hadn’t bought one, lack of interest was the top response at 37.9%. If the respondents who plan to purchase a smart speaker in 2018 follow through, the product segment would see 50% growth to its user base.

Anna Washenko