Both companies cut prices for their base version of smart speakers, including the Amazon Echo Dot and Google's Home Mini, which cut prices by $ 29 and $ 50 respectively, while Apple did not have the ability to schedule In the beginning of selling their HomePod, Apple said the device will be officially listed in early 2018.
Analysts believe Apple hopes to profit from its HomePod hardware and $ 9.99 monthly subscription of Apple Music services Apple's voice-enabled virtual assistant Siri will focus on recommending new songs to users, while Amazon and Google's virtual voice assistant Alexa and Google Assistant is hoping to retain consumers with product promotions and data analytics.
Both Google Home Mini and Amazon Echo Dot, both devices are not comparable in sound quality to HomePod, but with their more affordable prices, making them more competitive than Apple's HomePod.In addition to these two models Outside the box, Amazon and Google's midrange smart speaker products are only $ 79 during the Double-Aid promotion, well below HomePod's $ 349.
Paul Erickson, senior analyst at IHS Markit, said: 'The pricing of products from Google and Amazon is a good thing for consumers and a bad news for Apple.'
In a news release, Amazon revealed that they sold millions of Echo Dot smartphones during the two-day holiday, making it the highest-selling product on Amazon's online store during the holidays.
Home Mini did not disclose sales, but Google Home spokeswoman Nicol Addison said the company was very pleased with the sales of the holiday. Customers who bought the Pixel 2 handset were given Home Mini devices.In addition in Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy and other platforms, Home Mini is even lower the price of 29 US dollars.
In the current smart speaker market, Amazon is only marginally ahead of Google, and analysts predict sales of smartphones for both companies are not yet enough to have a significant impact on their financial results.
Analysts at ABI Research say the Amazon Echo Dot is worth about $ 31 and the Google Home Mini is worth about $ 26. The price does not include other costs such as shipping, advertising, etc. This means that during the two-day holiday During this period, both Google and Amazon sold both devices at a loss.
Adam Wright, a senior research analyst at IDC, believes that in the past few weeks, about 35 million smartphones have been marketed in the market, excluding the U.S. Christmas sales season, he said: 'Apple is now experiencing Little trouble. In the past 6 months, the smart speaker market has been explosive.