Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Consumers flock to smart speakers
Voice-enabled speaker users, US only (m)
2017
2018
2019
2016
Amazon echo
Google home
Other
50
40
30
20
10
0
Source
: eMarketer 
© FT

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113
CASE STUDY
used beyond the smartphone is becoming vital as 
consumers’ usage habits change. A survey by con-
sultancy Accenture found that almost two-thirds of 
customers who own smart speakers use their smart-
phones less often for entertainment, and more than 
half use their mobiles less for ecommerce and search 
queries.
That same trend leaves Baidu and Amazon, 
who were slower than their rivals to adopt mobile 
devices, with the most to gain from virtual assistants 
– as long as they can find enough device partners to 
help distribute them.
‘I believe [the smartphone] is the wrong device for 
a voice platform because it’s fundamentally a finger-
first device,’ Qi Lu, Baidu’s chief operating officer, 
told reporters at CES on Monday.
Source
: from ‘Amazon and Google lead way on virtual assistant deal making at CES’, Financial Times, 09/01/18 (Bradshaw, T.).
Discussion questions
1 
What type of customer information will AI platforms be able to gather?
2 
What methods are currently used to gather this type of information?
3 
What stages should companies follow when conducting market research?
Rise in connected TV popularity
Source
: Tim Bradshaw in Las Vegas “Amazon and Google lead way on virtual assistant dealmaking at CES”, 
Financial Times, JANUARY 9, 2018.
200
Amazon Fire
Google Chromecast
Roku
Smart TV**
US users, by device (m)
*figures from 2018 onward are forcasts; **includes connected game consoles