Apple's smart speaker HomePod could have been a 'blockbuster' for the Christmas shopping season, but may now be reduced to a gift from Easter baskets.
Following the iPhone X production delay postponed delivery, released in June this year, Smart Speaker HomePod face 'jump vote.'
Apple said in a statement on Friday: "HomePod will take a moment to meet with consumers, and we will be the first to launch in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia by early 2018."
According to the initial plan announced by Apple in the new conference in June this year, HomePod will be on sale in December this year, when the Christmas shopping season comes in. As for the specific when the market, Apple did not make a clear answer to the first financial reporter.Apple The company also did not disclose the specific reasons for the delay in listing.
HomePod's official price of 349 US dollars, the price is much higher than rival Amazon's latest smart speaker Echo Show, Echo Show official price of 230 dollars.Google's smart speaker Google Home selling price is as low as 49 Dollars.
Apple's HomePod will be equipped with Siri voice control system.At the beginning of HomePod, Apple does not seem optimistic about the smart speaker market.Apple Marketing Vice President Schiller said: 'People may not want to speak against a machine do not want to speak. He also laughed at Amazon's Echo because it is difficult to screen widely accepted by the market.
However, in order to gain more profit growth point, Apple eventually had to choose to enter the crowded market of smart home, through the release of HomePod this 'new stuff' to win the consumer, Moreover, Apple already has Homekit such software platform, smart home It is a natural fit for Apple.
However, Apple, as a "latecomer" to the smart audio market, is still uncertain about whether to occupy this otherwise heavily congested market, and consumers may not pay for it, given the relatively high price of HomePod.
Amazon currently accounts for more than half of the smart speaker market.According to the latest research firm eMarketer research reports, in the intelligent voice control speaker market, Amazon has accounted for more than 70% market share, Google market share of 24% this year, the global smart speaker The number of users is expected to double to 35.6 million.
Amazon's Echo Show is the fourth smart speaker product the company has released since 2014. According to Morgan Stanley's statistics, Amazon Echo sold 11 million units last year.
Canalys analyst Ishan Dutt told CBN reporter: 'Apple may want to catch up in the smart home, but artificial intelligence and intelligent assistant is not their core product and the primary development needs.In contrast, Google and Amazon are' More serious 'participants.'
Although Apple may lag behind rivals in terms of artificial intelligence, Apple has inherent advantages in music because Apple itself owns streaming music services and it has acquired music accessories companies like Beats The combination of multiple hardware will help create an ecosystem around music and entertainment.
But Apple is also facing competition from traditional home audio brands in this area, with Sonos, an American home speaker brand, that has integrated Amazon Alexa into its products, allowing millions of Sonos owners to control their music through voice, You can also perform functions other than music that help people improve their quality of life, such as ordering meals and playing games.
Sonos and Apple are long-term partners, and Sonos's platform can play streaming media libraries including Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and Tencent Music, but Sonos is getting closer to voice assistants, a process that speeds up music and Artificial intelligence integration.
Although Sonos currently only accesses the Alexa platform, its goal is to work with all voice assistants, whether it's Alexa, Cortana, Google Voice Assistant or Siri.
As the most important market for Apple, China also emerged as a strong competitor of several Apple smartphones in recent years, such as going out for advice by former Google engineer Li Zhifei and launching the latest research and development for China and overseas markets in September of this year Wireless smart speaker Tichome.
The combination of Tichome and Artificial Intelligence Assistant is regarded as the Chinese version of Amazon Echo. In response, Li Zhifei told CBN reporter: 'The intelligent speaker asked is more humane and practical than Echo and can be more accurately implemented Dialogue, voice interaction and personalized identification and other functions.
HomePod introduction of the more late, which means giving more space to competitors, which is Apple's aggressive marketing strategy for the cost of Apple's flagship model iPhone X from the current delivery speed point of view, even the first batch Pre-booked consumers may not get new machines until December at the earliest, and Apple is working with suppliers to speed up the production process in order to hand over enough iPhone Xs.
Apple chief designer Jony Ive said in a discussion with the New Yorker in October that the iPhone X technology was developed by Apple in five years, but even taking into account the technology of face recognition in production Faced with difficulties, Apple did not give suppliers a little more time - still only two years of production preparation period.Apple such scheduling in the industry seems too radical.
According to Guo Mingchi KGI analyst forecast in the upcoming quarter of the shopping season, the Apple iPhone X shipments will reach 25 million to 30 million units while last year, all Apple iPhone models shipments reached 78 million station.