According to a new report published by eMarketer, Amazon Echo shares in the US will drop by around 66 per cent in 2019, losing ground to competitors like the Google Home and the Apple HomePod. The Amazon Echo remains the leading product in the smart speaker industry, but with the increasing popularity of other smart speakers, Amazon’s share will continue to shrink through 2020.

In 2019, the Amazon Echo will account for 63.3 per cent of smart speaker users, with Google Home users increasing to 31 per cent, while smaller brands like the Sonos One and Apple HomePod will increase to 12 per cent. With 74.2m total people predicted to be smart speaker users in 2019, the interactive technology has jumped in popularity by 15 per cent over 2018.

eMarketer analysts have discovered that smart speakers are becoming so common, that 26.8 per cent, or more than one-quarter of adults, will own a smart speaker by the end of next year. Victoria Petrock, an eMarketer principal analyst, attributes Amazon’s growing competition to the difference in function and strengths between the brands. For example, the Google Home can communicate in a variety of languages, therefore reaching a wider audience around the globe, and the Apple HomePod is compatible with all Apple products.

“Consumers in the market for a smart speaker have more options than ever, and Amazon will lose some of its majority share as a result,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst Jaimie Chung. “Google has the Home Mini and Home Hub to compete with Amazon’s Echo Dot and Echo Show, and both the Apple HomePod and Facebook Portal will experience their first holiday season this year. Amazon has remained relevant by plugging Alexa into premium speakers like the Sonos, but even Sonos plans to bring Google Assistant to its devices next year, keeping the two companies neck and neck in the voice assistant race.”

“We still don’t see a lot of people shopping and buying with smart speakers yet, but this may change if more lower-cost models begin to incorporate screens,” said Petrock. “We’re also likely to see people doing more things with their voice assistants as they find their way into cars and other home-based devices.”

You can read the full report here.