China leads global Q2 smart speaker shipment: report

BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- China doubled its smart speaker shipment size to 12.6 million units between April and June, more than twice as large as the U.S. market which stood at 6.1 million, according to a report by the global technology market analyst firm Canalys.

The global smart speaker market grew 55.4 percent in Q2 2019 to reach 26.1 million units. Amazon maintained the worldwide lead, while Baidu replaced Google to become the number two in the smart speaker market, the report showed.

Baidu saw its smart speaker shipment grow about 3,700 percent to reach 4.5 million units in Q2 2019.

Vendors are facing the challenge of pivoting to more complex devices in the short term, with most vendors looking to integrate displays, the report said.