While smart home fans in the United States are still pondering whether to buy Google Home, a smart speaker, or Amazon’s Echo Show, a smart speaker with a display screen, their Chinese peers might already have an answer.
Robin Li, the founder of Chinese search engine giant Baidu, revealed on Monday at the Digital China Summit that in February, his company shipped more smart speakers with display screens than those without, the first time since the company began offering both in its product lineup one year ago.
He did not share the number shipments, nor how shipments of screen-based smart devices compared with the speakers in the months following February.
Baidu told KrASIA that those numbers are still private for now.
Alibaba shipped 8.9 million smart speakers in 2018 worldwide, ranking third with a market share of 11.4%, after Amazon and Google, according to online news portal yicai.com, citing data from the Qianzhan Industrial Research Institute.
Xiaomi and Baidu followed with 7.1 million units and 3.6 million units respectively.
Last month, Alibaba also launched its smart speaker with a display screen.
Contact the writer at jingli@kr-asia.com
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
