Sales of multi-room audio devices are “under-performing” but Amazon is on course for several million sales of its Echo speaker this year, according to the latest predictions from Futuresource Consulting.
Its latest report suggests that Amazon sold 1m of its voice-controlled speakers in the final quarter of 2015, and predicts that it’ll shift between 2.5m and 3m in 2016. Despite the slowing sales of multi-room devices, Futuresource expects big tech companies to drive the connected audio market forward. “The future for the category continues to evolve as technology giants, such as Amazon and Google push the boundaries further by introducing devices with voice assistance features,” claimed Futuresource. “The industry expects this to present new opportunities for the audio hardware vendors to explore. Of course, Google is leveraging its strength as a search engine and also tying in with its other services such as Google Play and Google Cast while Amazon will benefit from its strong online retail presence and music subscription service.” Amazon is rumoured to be launching a standalone version of Prime Music tied to its Echo speaker soon.
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