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In a race for dominance in what’s becoming one of the hottest categories in consumer electronics, Amazon.com (AMZN) is thumping Google-owner Alphabet (GOOGL) — for now.
Amazon has a big early lead in the category of digital assistants with its Echo, a voice-controlled, internet-connected, multifunctional speaker, connected to Amazon’s Alexa voice service. It has wowed users, who give Echo a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars on Amazon’s website.
Market trackers estimate that Amazon has sold more than 6 million Echo devices, compared with 500,000 for the comparable Google Home device, Richard Windsor, an analyst at Edison Investment Research, said in a research note Friday. Echo, though, hit the market more than two years ago, while Google Home just went on sale in October.
“Google has to act quickly as Amazon is on the brink of becoming the industry standard for controlling smart home devices,” Windsor wrote. At CES, the giant consumer electronics show early this month in Las Vegas, “everyone was integrating with Echo, with Google Home and Apple HomeKit barely present,” he wrote.
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The battle won’t just be between Alphabet and Amazon. Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) are in the game as well, though neither has yet introduced an in-home device.
Microsoft has deep roots in artificial intelligence with its Cortana platform, available on mobile devices and PCs. This is also true of Apple with its Siri platform. Apple’s voice-activated Siri program is available on the iPhone and iPad, but Apple has not yet signaled when it might introduce an in-home digital assistant.
Amazon dominated CES as numerous companies announced their integration with Echo and Alexa, a virtual assistant infused with voice recognition and artificial intelligence. Amazon is pushing hard to connect Echo to other in-home devices to develop a broader ecosystem.
Television sets equipped with Amazon Fire TV and a voice remote with Alexa are slated to arrive this year.
Since it opened up its Echo technology to third-party developers in June 2015, more than 7,000 applications, which Amazon calls skills, have been announced. The device sells for $179.99.
Google Home sells for $50 less, but Amazon also offers a low-end version of Echo, the Dot, which sells for $49.99.
Google Home potentially has a big advantage, in that Alphabet has been collecting huge swathes of data on consumers for years, through its search program, Google Maps and other applications.
“Google’s Assistant is much cleverer and much more useful than Amazon’s Alexa, but if Amazon wins a big presence in people’s homes this will give it time and the data it needs to close the gap to Google,” Windsor wrote. “We estimate that only 2% of Amazon’s users who are aware of the Echo have bought one, meaning that Google still has a chance, but it will have to do even more than it has done as of today.”
In the stock market today, Alphabet rose 0.5% to 828.17, back in a buy zone from a recent breakout at 824.40 after closing Thursday at 824.37.
Amazon fell 0.1% to 808.33. Amazon has been forming a cup base, with a buy point of 847.31, but may be forming a handle that would offer a lower buy point.
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