PCQ User’s Choice Awards 2021: Amazon-Google replace traditional players

Global giants Amazon and Google are on top here and are pushing the traditional player towards the bottom of the club.

The Indian speaker market is expected to reach 40.53 million pieces by 2025. The audio market in India is still in its growth phase with a large untapped potential. Constant evolution and innovation has accelerated the sales. On the other hand, intelligent speakers are presenting the whole new connected world of IoT (Internet of Things). Since AI speakers came to the market, most consumers were attracted to them for their functionality.

Most of us must have used Apple Siri or Google Assistant on our smartphones. Apple, Google and Amazon bring that smartness in the speakers. Whether you want to make calls, turn on/off AC, light, fan, etc. all can be done easily with your voice using a smart speaker.

Amazon is the champion brand in the smart speaker category, Google is first runner-up and Bose grabbed second runner-up spot. Philips and Marshall are next in the top list.

Amazon leads the spontaneous awareness of smart speaker brands with 70 per cent score, followed by Google – 57, Bose – 48, Marshall – 35, Philips – 29 per cent.

Currently, 32 per cent of respondents are using Amazon devices. Interestingly, Apple was not able to make it to the top five, while Google came in at third runner-up with 8 per cent. Philips got first, 15 per cent, and Bose, 9 per cent, second runner-up. boAt surprisingly came into the top five with 6 per cent share.

When asked for future consideration of brands, again Amazon was first choice with 54 per cent votes, followed by Google – 41, Bose – 27, Philips – 24, and Marshall – 22.

Once again, Amazon hit the top spot in Overall Satisfaction, Amazon got the maximum score – 98. However, the differences were not huge between all the top five – Google 94, Bose – 92, Philips – 91, and Sony – 90. The top five list was missing the brand Sony which enters here.

In terms of loyalty, Google got the max score – 92, Bose came next with 91 and then Amazon – 89, followed by Philips – 87, and boat – 85. Apple missed the top list with 10 points here.

On the contrary, when asked for recommendation, Amazon once again makes its comeback. Bose was the first runner-up followed by Google, Philips, and boAt.

Amazon and Google are mostly preferred for the brand name. Respondents also find Amazon good at pricing along with Bose and Philips. Whereas boAt is mostly preferred for the quality of product.