Bloomberg has reported that Apple is concerned about sales forecasts and figures for the first few months of release. Due to this, Apple has reportedly decreased the amount of orders initially made from their HomePod supplier, Inventec Corporation.
According to statistics and data, the HomePod started off strong with positive, strong amount of pre-orders; the HomePod also taking one third of the US smart speaker market. These strong numbers are in terms of sales in the last week of January, it is now the second week into April and HomePod sales have started to decrease. It is reported that as few as 10 HomePods are being sold at very Apple Store per day which is quite a large decrease from the successful first few months the HomePod had.
The HomePod was also a product/idea that was revived multiple times due to Apple not being able to decide whether it was a product worth producing and releasing or not. This was a difficult decision for Apple as there are already strong competitors out there, such as the Amazon Echo. The Amazon Echo is a strong competitor as the product is not Amazon exclusive meaning that the device can work fully most if not all devices. This means that you could use a Samsung or an iPhone or a LG with the Amazon Echo. However, the HomePod is exclusive to Apple devices as it only works with Siri and ties into the Apple Ecosystem. Hence why some people might not consider the HomePod a worthy purchase when you can get an Amazon Echo for much cheaper and it will work with most devices.
However, it is wrong to call the HomePod a flop at such an early stage. Without changing any hardware, Apple can still improve the HomePod by improving Siri through software updates. Siri can definitely be improved for all Apple devices as Siri is a bit behind Google Now and Amazon Echo when it comes to capabilities and the number of tasks Siri can do. A lot of improvements can be made to ‘revive’ HomePod forecasts and sales.
Do you have a HomePod? Would you purchase one if it was cheaper? If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them down below!
