The smart speaker market may be worth nearly US$20 billion by 2024

Smart speakers are vehicles for voice assistants, and may also double as others in some cases (displays or wireless chargers, for example). A new market research report indicates that their sales are likely to remain strong into the 2020s. This will lead to compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.2% for their market.

This growth may be influenced by factors such as growing consumer interest in these devices over time; population shift toward cities; increasing discretionary incomes and the value manufacturers place on voice-search data.

On that note, the smart speaker industry is led by companies such as Xiaomi, Amazon, Apple, Baidu, Google, and Alibaba Group. They have created software such as Alexa, Assistant, Siri, Xiao Al and Ali Genie (the latter is, as the name suggests, provided by Alibaba and is installed on devices such as the Chinese e-tailer Tmall's own-brand speakers), with Alexa taking the greatest share of the global market in 2019.