A Foolish Take: Amazon Will Dominate the Smart Speaker Market This Year

When Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) introduced the Echo smart speaker late in 2014, some critics called it an unnecessary device. But the Echo actually expanded the company's e-commerce ecosystem into homes, making it easier to order products from Amazon, use its streaming services, and control other connected devices.

Amazon's first-mover advantage has given it an edge against Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft -- which have all introduced their own smart speakers. Research firm eMarketer estimates that this year, 35.6 million Americans will use a voice-activated assistant device at least once per month -- a 129% increase from last year -- and believes that Amazon will control 70.6% of the smart speaker market. (This forecast predates the announcement of the HomePod, which won’t be released until December of this year.)

Data source: eMarketer. Chart by author.

Source: Fool.com