Early Apple HomePod Numbers Don’t Look Very Impressive

[Guest]

Apple is still far behind Amazon and Google in the smart home market.

Early Apple HomePod Numbers Don’t Look Very Impressive : Read more

 

[Harvey_14]

Strategy Analytics reported that Apple shipped an estimated 600,000 HomePod smart speakers in the first quarter of 2018. That accounts for about 6% of the market for smart speakers.

That is very impressive considering that this was the HomePod's very first sales quarter, and that the HomePod was only available for less than 2 of the 3 months in that quarter (HomePod was released on February 9, 2018), and that sales have been limited to only 3 countries (UK, USA & Australia) which make up only about 10% of the possible worldwide market.

Despite the limitations of sales only during ? of the first quarter, and availability in only 3 countries, sales of the HomePod in its first quarter actually outperformed sales of the first iPhone in its first quarter:

First quarter iPhone sales in 2007: 1.2 million units, which was only 0.3% of the total mobile phone market
First quarter HomePod sales was: 600,000 units, which was 6% of the total smart speaker market (a much smaller market than the mobile phone market)

In other words, the first quarter HomePod sales beat the first quarter iPhone sales by a factor of about 18x... There is one word that describes the HomePod first quarter sales performance: IMPRESSIVE.

 

[Steffen Jobbs]

Not impressive enough sales... So ridiculous. Apple isn't selling $50 Echo Dots like Amazon is. If those HomePod numbers are correct that's a fair amount of $350 smart speakers being sold. I don't know why I'm wasting my time replying. Most critics are saying the HomePod is too expensive, so it's somewhat impressive Apple is selling as many as they are (if those numbers are accurate). What would be considered an impressive number? 1 million? 2 million? No, I'm sure even those numbers aren't impressive enough for critics. The HomePod missed the Christmas holidays and the HomePod isn't even available yet in a lot of countries. Oh, well... As usual, an Apple product doesn't meet someone's sales expectations in such a short time period.

 

[jakimo]

Interesting. I *love* our HomePod and use it daily. Sounds great, and it'll get better in software in time. I put away our Alexa and haven't missed a beat.

I do look forward to June's announcements, especially Siri improvements.

 

[techconc]

Given that none of the OEMs are publishing how many units the ship and that they are often lumped into some "other" category along with other devices and services, it would be interesting to see how Strategy Analytics comes up with their guestimates.