Baidu Surpasses Google In The Global Market Of Smart Speaker

Baidu – the search giant from China is currently the 2nd biggest seller of smart speakers in the world, as newly reported by Canalys. According to this research firm, Baidu surpassed Google to take 17.3% of the global smart speaker market with exactly 4.5 million shipments in 2019’s latter half, which represents the staggering 3,700-percent growth year-over-year. With over 25% share of the global market as well as 6.6 million cargoes, Amazon keeps its position as the general leader.

The AI speakers made by Baidu run on DuerOS which is an AI-powered platform. Initially, Baidu aimed at the high-end market with its aforementioned product - Teenage Engineering-designed Raven H speaker; however, it blatantly sold poorly.

The company has recently boosted sales of some much cheaper models, alongside the basic product - Xiaodu speaker which is sold at a very low price of approximately 12USD (89 yuan). As Canalys reported, in 2019’s first four months, Baidu surpassed Alibaba which used to be the domestic leader.

Of course, it is notable that Google and Baidu are not direct competitors. While Baidu’s products are sold only in the company’s home market, Google’s are sold almost everywhere apart from China. However, the explosive growth of Baidu over the previous year shows the dynamics and size of the AI ecosystem in China. Last year, Robin Li – Baidu’s CEO said clearly that Google re-enters China and the following prospect would not worry about the company.

Even though Google’s advantage is the ability to address other nations, the Nest Hub (or Google Home Hub) launched in India today – another huge market full of potentials is an instance of that. The smart displays have a price of about 139USD or approximately 10,000 rupees. According to Gadgets360, the world search giant is bundling Mi Security Camera of Xiaomi with Google’s Nest Hub, which is an opening promotion.