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China’s Baidu Surpasses Google In Smart Speaker Sales

The voice-based services industry is showing rapid growth as the global sale of smart speakers has reached a new high. Amazon and Google were the two big companies to anticipate this market shift and unveil their smart speakers. However, the latest industry report from market research firm Canalys shows that Google is losing the game to China’s Baidu.

The latest report from Canalys shows that in Q2 2019, the global smart speaker market grew by a massive 55%. The total smart speaker shipments in the second quarter were 26.1 million units. Among several players, Amazon continued to dominate the space with 6.6 million units shipped during Q2 2019.

However, China’s Baidu has taken a sizeable lead with total smart speaker sales crossing 4.5 million units against Google 4.3 million units. With this, Baidu registered a massive surge of 3700% in its smart speaker sales.

Baidu’s growth has simultaneously propelled China’s overall smart speaker market with shipments doubling to 12.6 million units. This is more than twice the 6.1 million units sold by the United States in the same quarter. In its report, Canalys notes that Baidu has been very successful in the shipment of its smart displays that accounted for 45% of the overall products shipped. Besides, the company’s aggressive marketing has helped it make more sales.

Canalys Research Analyst Cynthia Chen said:

“Local network operators’ interests on the [smart display] device category soared recently. This bodes well for Baidu as it faces little competition in the smart display category, allowing the company to dominate in the operator channel”.

The research analyst firm said that Google’s move towards the Nest rebranding has proved a challenge for the search giant. The report notes that Google’s rebranding hasn’t worked out well for the company, and is the major reason for its downturn. Canalys senior analyst Jason Low said:

“Google’s transition to the Nest branding while pivoting to smart displays proved to be a challenge, especially as it has begun rolling out its Nest Hub smart display globally. Google urgently requires a revamped non-display smart speaker portfolio to rekindle consumer interest as well as a robust marketing strategy to build its Nest branding outside of the U.S.”

Moreover, Google and Baidu aren’t competing with each other as Baidu’s reach is limited only to its home market. On the other hand, Google’s smart speakers are available worldwide except China.

The search giant is very much aware of the recent missteps and would rectify them soon. Moreover, Google is also focusing majorly on India which holds a huge potential for its Nest products.

China’s Baidu Surpasses Google In Smart Speaker Sales

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