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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

'OK Google, give everybody in America a free speaker' [marketwatch.com]

Alphabet Inc. should give every household in America a free Google Home Mini smart speaker, a Morgan Stanley analyst suggested Thursday.

The speakers currently retail for $49 each, which would mean spending about $3.3 billion. Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak wrote Thursday that would be a "small price to pay" for Google-parent Alphabet. He estimated that the company could compensate for that cost about five times over through the operating profits it generates more generally from retail search over the next five years.

Nowak worries that Google is losing ground to Amazon.com Inc. when it comes to retail search queries, given that more purchases are being made through voice commands and Amazon is widely thought to have a lead on Google in terms of smart-speaker penetration. He projects that roughly 70% of households will have speakers by 2022, and that Amazon will have 1.3 times more speakers in homes than Google will at that point, absent any dramatic action.

Also at VentureBeat [venturebeat.com] and CNBC [cnbc.com].

Related: Amazon Dominates Voice-Controlled Speaker Market [soylentnews.org]
Voice-Powered Smart Speakers to be in 55% of U.S. Homes by 2022 [soylentnews.org]
Bluetooth Hack Affects 20 Million Amazon Echo and Google Home Devices [soylentnews.org]

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