Canalys has released its third-quarter market research on the global smart speaker industry. Worldwide shipments increased 137% on-year for a total of 19.7 million units. After a strong Q2 for Google, Amazon has regained its lead in the latest period, likely thanks to its big sales push on Prime Day. Continue Reading
Voice assistants and smart devices are one of the hottest topics for the audio industry, and a new report from Voicebot.ai, PullString, and the RAIN Agency traces the trend’s progress. According to the report, voice assistants have moved out of their first phase, marked by availability across platforms and languages and access to core features. It suggested that the second phase of voice will be marked by more nuanced features, use in more contexts, and availability on more connected devices. Continue Reading
CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, has released its annual report. The organization saw a 6% uptick in global music royalties to reach €8.34 billion in 2017. Digital music collections grew 23.1% to surpass €1 billion. Continue Reading
YouTube paid more than $1.8 billion in ad revenue to rightsholders in the music industry from October 2017 to September 2018. According to the How Google Fights Piracy report, that figure brings YouTube’s total music industry payments to more than $6 billion in ad revenues. Continue Reading
The Consumer Technology Association conducted a survey of Canadians’ technology ownership. While products such as televisions, smartphones, and laptops demonstrated near-ubiquity, smart speakers did show promising signs in the market. Continue Reading
Anchor has released data about how and where people are tuning in to podcasts created on its platform. Following several pivots, Anchor is now a service for free and fast podcast recording and distribution. Continue Reading
Spotify remained the leading webcast streamer in July, according to the just-released report from Triton Digital’s Webcast Metrics Ranker, a comparison of stream listening volume among Triton’s top 20 clients. Continue Reading
In the recently released Q3 report from RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research), UK listeners are becoming more digital, while overall radio reach remains high. Continue Reading
Market research firm Strategy Analytics has another snapshot of the smart speaker market. The company released a ranking of the top smart speaker models in the United States from a poll of more than 1,000 people during July and August. The results for Amazon look positively rosy, full of potential for Google, and not-too-bright for Apple. Continue Reading
Music has always been a potent force for inspiring emotions, but that passion can extend to music platforms as well. Recent data from MusicWatch found a possible reason why so many studies are seeing low interest in radio among the younger generations. Continue Reading
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation released results from its third annual podcast survey during the OzPod event this week. The survey found that women are driving growth for listener engagement overall and for true crime shows in particular. Continue Reading
Soundtrack Your Brand, a B2B music provider for physical storefronts, commissioned a study from Nielsen Music into the financial impact of where businesses obtain background music. According to the study, rightsholders could be missing out on a total of $2.65 billion annually due to businesses using the personal streaming accounts of staff members rather than products designed for company and for-profit uses. Continue Reading