Some Indian users junk smart speakers within a month

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New Delhi: While smart speaker adoption in India is on the rise, some users stop using them just a month after purchase, says a survey by CyberMedia Research (CMR). After a month of getting a smart speaker at home, 40 per cent used it more often, while, almost 38 per cent lost interest and used it less, showed the results.

“What the survey findings tells us is that there are two cohorts of users: keen adopters and some laggards. The keen tech adopters, are, by nature, curious and have embraced smart speakers as part of their daily lives,” said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR.

“They use it across locations – from living rooms to kitchen. In sharp contrast, the laggards are yet to discover new use cases, beyond playing music and other routine tasks,” Ram added. The survey of 1,000 adult smart speaker owners, across the top four Indian metros, was conducted in April-May 2019.

While around 56 per cent of the people use their device daily, there is an interesting cohort of 18 per cent who have almost rarely used their smart speaker, if ever, and likely to have received it as gifts, the study said. Of those who use smart speakers daily, 30 per cent indicated using the smart speakers several times a day.

The top three use cases for smart speakers include playing music (94 per cent), entertaining children (74 per cent), and seeking news and information (71 per cent).

A majority of those surveyed had not made a purchase using a smart speaker, with close to 40 per cent indicating lack of awareness on how to make purchases on their device, and found it too complicated (18 per cent). According to International Data Corporation (IDC), a total of 7.53 lakh units of smart speakers were shipped in 2018 in India.