When it comes to smart speaker sales, Google is pathetically trailing in third place

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For how ubiquitous Google Assistant is nowadays, you’d think that Google would be a one-two with the other giant of the smart speaker market, Amazon.

For most of the history of smart speakers, you’d be right but there’s a new contender in town which has kicked Google down to third place.

Google is only the third biggest shipper of smart speakers

While nobody’s catching Amazon anytime soon, Baidu, the Chinese giant that’s pretty much Google’s Eastern counterpart has outpaced Google in smart speaker shipments this quarter. That’s even while the global smart speaker market grew 55.5 percent, with 26.1 million total units shipped.

The market in the US shrank 2.4 percent in that period, with 6.1 million units shipped. Compare that to the 12.6 million smart speakers purchased in China and it’s easy to see how Baidu caught up.

At least, that’s according to market research firm Canalys, who released its report for Q2 of 2019 this week. Here are some snippets from the report:

• Amazon is still No. 1 globally in the smart speaker space
• Chinese tech giant Baidu grabbed the No. 2 spot from Google earlier this year
• That’s 6.6 million speakers for Amazon, 4.5 million for Baidu, and 4.3 million for Google
• The change to incorporate the Nest branding while bringing smart displays out hurt Google’s shipment tally

Google still has plenty of time to claw back to its previous placement, with new Nest Mini devices expected to release in the Fall.

What do you think? Surprised that the big G is now trailing even further behind Amazon? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.