Welcome to Alphabet City I'm your guide [UNKNOWN] and you are also crushed that spider man is out advancing you.
A new report by analyst group catalyst says that Google has fallen from number two to number three in the smart speaker market during the second quarter of this year.
Amazon is number one with over 25% of the market.
So what company is the new number two?
Is it Apple with its home pod Of course not who has a home pod?
Baidu is the number two spot speaker maker in the second quarter.
That's kind of nuts.
Take a look at last year at the same time.
Baidu speakers were 0.7% of the market.
This year 17.3% Baidu moved 4.5 million units.
Compare that with Google.
Google is now 16.7% of the market.
Now, if Google wants to grow in the smart speaker market, it's going to take work.
Here is what a Canalys analyst said.
Google's transition to the Nest branding while pivoting to smart displays proved to be a challenge.
Google urgently requires a revamped non-display smart speaker portfolio To rekindle consumer interest.
I agree with that guy.
For a while we had both Nest and Google existing independently under Alphabet.
It was not until last year that things got streamlined.
Nest finally returned to Google and was merged into Google's home devices.
Then this past May We got the horrible branding of Google Nest products.
The Google Home Hub smart display got renamed the Google Nest Hub.
Meanwhile, the regular smart speakers are called Google Home and Google Home Mini.
For a company that understands how people surf for stuff, this is almost a disaster and leave the confusion in the market.
I'm a consumer.
And I want a Google assistance product.
Which one do I get?
We've got the Google Home, Google Home Mini, the Google nest hub, and the Google nest hub max.
There's also other Google nest of branded devices, like the Google nest Hello doorbell and the Google nest Cam indoor.
Let's take a look at Amazon.
It's got the Echo.
The Echo dot, the Echo Show, the Echo Show Five, the Echo Spot, and that Echo Look.
See?
That's consistent.
Do you want an Amazon Doorbell?
It's called Ring.
Not Amazon Echo Ring.
You want an Amazon camera?
It's called Amazon cloud cam.
Take a look at this ad, that popped up in my Google app.
The ad is for a Google Home Mini.
Above it, is actually the Nest thermostat.
Even Google, Can't keep it stuff straight.
The analysts mentioned something about a revamped non display smart speaker.
That brings us to the rumored nest mini nine to five Google says Google is working on a new version of the Google Home mini Which would be named, nest mini.
The report says that nest mini will have better sound, be louder and be wall mountable.
But also have a 3.5 milimetres stereo jack.
Maybe this is the new speaker Google needs.
Also maybe that ad Google gave me is just the new mountable mini.
It just looks a lot like the nest former stash.
At my home I've got both Alexa power devices as well as Google assistance devices.
At first The Amazon Echo seemed great.
It was compatible with so many different things.
If there were deficiencies I could work around them using it.
Quick aside it lets you connect different apps and services as an example getting.
An echo to do item to appear on your Google Calendar aside over then Google had its Google Home device I grabbed one right away to see how it would perform.
At first, it was not as connected as an echo.
Now that changed over time.
Assistant also had the advantage when it came to handling random questions.
For whatever reason, I find that incredibly useful.
At this point.
I use echo devices, mainly to order things from Amazon and play jeopardy.
Everything else is handled by Google Home.
So for some use cases, Google beats amazon for others, Amazon wins.
Now what about China where Baidu is king?
Google services are not readily available there.
As we've discussed on this show in the past, Google was looking for a way to get back to China with the DragonFly project.
Long story short, back in 2018, it was reported that Google was working on a censored search engine for China.
There would be an app that would be tied to the user's phone number.
The reports led to the US government questioning Google about DragonFly.
This year, a VP for google told the US Senate Judiciary Committee that the project was terminated.
Now lets talk about Baidu, as of July 2019 Baidu has over 76% of the.
The search engine market in China, according to statcounter.
Google is under 3%.
Let's take a look at Baidu smart speaker lineup which I have never seen before.
If you guys know more about the speakers or have tried them out.
Let me know in the comments.
I'm really curious.
Prices seem to run from 89 Yuan to around 400 [UNKNOWN] that's around 12 to 56 US dollars.
That sounds pretty reasonable.
Quickly shifting gears, the clock is ticking on the Pixel 4's official release.
We talked about a leak last time.
Enmity says, in terms of radar (or whatever Google ends up calling it), I think it will be far more useful in their smartwatch rather than in their smartphones.
However that face unlock is looking far more interesting, and I personally hope the chin is as small as it is on the iPhone 10s.
This could end up being a massive improvement to the not-so-attractive Pixel 3 XL design last year.
I agree about radar on a smart watch.
I think we'll see sold even a lot more devices in the future.
Maybe even in the smart speaker?
Thanks to everyone for writing in.
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I'll see you online.
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