Seventy-five million people in the U.S. use a smart speaker

Seventy-five million people in the U.S. are now using a smart speaker such as a HomePod (though Apple’s device has a very small share of the market), and more than half of them – 39 million – are using it to control their smart TV, video streamer or other TV device at least weekly. 

This finding comes from Strategy Analytics’ latest report, 2019 Smart Speaker User Survey – US Results, and is based on a survey of 1136 users of smart speakers carried out in July and August 2019. This means that 1-in-8 of all TV users are now using their voice to find shows, movies or videos, change channels, change the volume or simply turn the TV on or off.

The survey found that the most common use case for voice-controlling the TV is turning it on or off, followed by changing the volume and searching for a show and playing it on the TV. Changing channels is also more likely to be done on a daily basis.

“People have predicted the death of the TV remote control for many years. It seems that viewers have finally found a practical alternative – their own voices,” says David Watkins, director, Smart Speakers and Screens at Strategy Analytics. “Smart speakers are making video services and the TV itself even easier to use and content easier to find.”

David Mercer, vice president, principal analyst, and the report’s author adds: “With the growth in online video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, how people find video content is changing fast. The increasing popularity of smart speakers as TV control devices represents another phase in TV’s transformation and content owners need to plan for the inevitable disruption caused by these emerging user experiences.”