The Bass is Booming in the Global Speaker Industry

Whether listening to their favorite music, tuning into informational podcasts, catching up on captivating audiobooks, or boosting the overall volume levels of a device, millions of consumers depend on speakers as a means to output audio.  Subsequently, speakers represent a critical tool for motivation, relaxation, and functionality in society.  This criticality is reflected in the global speaker market, which continues to grow with consumption trends, quality improvements, and innovation.

The global speaker market consists of several segments—smart speakers, home audio speakers, portable speakers, and true wireless stereo—and generated 39.57 billion dollars in 2019.  The market is expected to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.5 percent en route to a predicted valuation of 233.27 billion dollars in 2027.  The main drivers of this growth lie in the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and battery technologies, which outweigh consumer concerns of potential data privacy issues. 

In terms of individual segments, smart speakers are projected to give the market its biggest boost in growth.  Currently, there is strong consumer preference and demand for portable, wireless speakers—this area of the industry was valued at about 12.32 billion dollars in 2018 and is expected to almost double to a valuation of 23.76 billion dollars by 2022.  This lends well to smart speakers, produced from leading companies like the United States’ Google, Amazon, Apple, Bose, and JBL that integrate AI assistants into their speakers in an attempt to further integrate the products into everyday tasks and activities.  In terms of countries, China produces the largest quantity of smart speakers at 12.6 million units in Q2 of 2019, followed by the U.S. at 6.1 million.  South Korea and the UK also contribute well to the overall production of smart speakers.

Overall, this is a unique market that figures to continue to expand along with the explosion of big data and the advancement of technology in society.  Consumer preferences and lifestyles also positively contribute to the predicted longevity of the speaker industry, and it will be interesting to see where the market goes moving forward.