“Though the smart speaker is a relatively young product in India, the integration of voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant in smart devices is gaining immense popularity in the country,” said Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India. The main driver of the early adoption so far is the novelty factor around this technology. “However, it is certainly driving the shift in consumer behaviour and accelerating the adoption of voice interfaces in India,” Singh added. “Many Indians are using voice assistants for the first time in their smartphones – some even using them in their feature phones – now with more localised and enhanced use cases, they want to use voice interfaces in more and more devices,” added Navkendar Singh, Research Director, IDC India. When it comes to the preferred channel for smart speakers, online channels inclusive of e-tailers and vendor’s own websites dominated smart speaker sales with 55% of the smart speakers sold in this channel, said IDC.
