Smart speaker ownership in selected European countries 2023

According to a 2023 study, 40 percent of German households owned a smart speaker. This proportion reached nearly a quarter in Spain. Smart speakers, powered by a voice-enabled virtual intelligent assistant, are the central controlling hubs for many smart home functions and are used for entertainment, answering questions, searching the web, among many other tasks.

The booming industry of smart home technology

The global smart speaker market is projected to count over 200 million units by 2024, a number that will keep increasing in the coming years. This trend is in line with the rising popularity of smart home technology, with the number of smart homes forecast to grow and surpass 400 million by 2024 as consumers are drawn to the many functionalities these related technologies have to offer.

Familiar big tech companies are major players in the smart home market

Companies including Google, Amazon, and Apple have driven the development of smart home technology with their smart speaker products such as Amazon Alexa and Echo, and Google Nest. Nevertheless, many additional tech and consumer electronics companies have entered the smart speaker market in recent years. As of 2022, Chinese vendors Xiaomi, Baidu, and Alibaba combined accounted for almost one-third of the global smart speaker sales. As the number of automated tasks is forecast to increase in coming years, this fierce competition is likely to continue.