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posted by martyb on Monday August 26 2019, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the Buying-into-Big-Brother dept.

Baidu overtakes Google in global smart speaker market

Chinese search giant Baidu is now the world's second biggest vendor of smart speakers, according to a new report from Canalys. The research firm says Baidu overtook Google to capture 17.3 percent of the global market with 4.5 million shipments in the second quarter of 2019, representing staggering year-on-year growth of 3,700 percent. Amazon remains the overall leader with more than 25 percent share of the market and 6.6 million shipments.

Baidu's AI speakers run on an AI platform called DuerOS. The company initially targeted the high end of the market with the Teenage Engineering-designed Raven H speaker, but that product apparently sold poorly. More recently, Baidu has pushed sales of much less expensive models, with the basic Xiaodu speaker selling for as low as 89 yuan (~$12). Baidu overtook previous domestic leader Alibaba in the first quarter of this year in China, according to Canalys.

But the company has faced some trouble lately:

Baidu has lost over $60 billion in value since its peak — now earnings are expected to fall further
TikTok's Parent Pushes Into Search Business in Threat to Baidu
Baidu is facing an unlikely challenger in China's search market — TikTok owner ByteDance
Baidu: 'China's Google' Is Not Done Yet

Related: Baidu Launches 'AI-powered Digital Assistant' Duer to Take On Google Now, Siri
Amazon Dominates Voice-Controlled Speaker Market
Alibaba Challenges Google, Amazon With New Echo-Like Device
Baidu, "China's Google", Shows First Loss
Google Will Give 100,000 Home Minis to People With Paralysis


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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 26 2019, @08:58PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 26 2019, @08:58PM (#885802) Journal

    Compared to the people who buy them, anything seems smart.

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