Strategy Analytics is out today with a new report on smart speaker sales for the 2018 holiday quarter. The good news for Apple is that HomePod saw almost 50% QoQ growth, which is impressive for the premium smart speaker. The entire category saw its best quarter and year yet with just shy of 40 million units shipped for Q4 2018 and 86.2 million smart speakers sold across 2018.
Previously, HomePod was believed to have captured about 6% of the smart speaker market. Strategy Analytics’ new data says that HomePod grew 45% for the 2018 holiday quarter compared to Q3 as it sold 1.6 million units. But because its competitors saw even more growth, Apple’s smart speaker saw a slightly lower 4% market share of the category for the quarter.
