Increasing popularity
Worldwide, China is currently one of the biggest smart speaker market in terms of shipments, followed by the United States where some of the most popular smart speaker brands around the world are based. Additionally, the smart speaker market in China is dominated by domestic brands, where Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, Xiaomi, and Baidu hold over 80 percent of the market share, as opposed to amounting to less than 30 percent globally.In the first half of 2022, sales revenue of smart speakers in China reached 4.2 billion yuan, which was already matched 2018’s total annual sales, despite the outbreak of COVID-19. As a result of the economic impact of the pandemic on the shopping behavior of consumers around the globe, industry growth was likely to fall short of past estimates. However, since the economy in China recovered relatively quickly, most consumers did not plan to reduce their spending.