Alexa, tell me about the smart speaker market in 2021

Consumer demand for smart speakers, which are voice-enabled products such as the Amazon Echo and Google’s Nest Mini, continues to grow.  Worldwide unit shipments are on track to increase by 12% in 2021. 

Despite some supply chain challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic that slowed production in 2020 and 2021, and in some cases reduced product availability, overall demand for smart speakers has remained robust.  Global shipments are projected to increase from an estimated 166.2 million units in 2020 to over 186 million in 2021.

Amazon, with its Echo smart speaker product line, was again the leading vendor of smart speakers in 2020. 

On a global basis, Kagan estimates that Amazon accounted for 22% of smart speaker shipments, with Google’s Nest Home smart speaker product line accounting for 18% of shipments. 

Chinese smart speaker products remain quite popular in the Asian market.  In 2020, Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi accounted for over 49 million unit shipments.