Report: Smartphones Lead Voice Shopping

Smart speakers—those clever devices made primarily by Amazon and Google that can listen and respond to you—are booming.

In 2017, sales of smart speakers totaled almost $4.5 billion and are forecasted to grow by 32% per year for the next five years. According to Forbes, the question is, are the devices more than this year's gadget fad or are they really useful? One thing that will make them valuable to consumers is if they help consumers shop more conveniently.

A new report by Voysis and Voicebot explores the question of how consumers are reacting to being able to shop by voice, both with smart speakers and using mobile phones’ voice capabilities.

Here are some of the findings from the report:

• One in five U.S. adults have tried voice shopping and about 5% say they are using it on at least a monthly basis
• More than 50% of U.S. adults that have tried voice shopping did it using their smartphone
• Nearly two out of five smart speaker owners have tried voice shopping, rising from around 26% in January 2018
• Smart speaker owners represent a much smaller base of total users than smartphones, but their frequency of voice shopping use is higher
• 16% of smart speaker owners also reported using voice shopping monthly compared to just 11.5% in January showing increased habit formation around voice shopping
• Everyday household items, apparel and entertainment/music/movies represent the top three categories for voice shopping today
• Apple Siri remains the most widely used voice assistant on smartphones, but Google Assistant is rapidly closing the gap
• 20% of smartphone owners use voice assistants monthly