Survey says people more likely to buy Amazon Echo than Apple HomePod

Having surveyed 2,200 adults in the United States, research firm Morning Consult Intelligence has found that one out of each three respondents showed interest in Apple’s HomePod sight unseen, or approximately 33 percent.

However, “only” 30 percent were interested in the HomePod speaker after being shown a comparison chart with other smart speakers, namely Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home.

Among those who already owned Apple products, 45 percent were interested in HomePod and 17 percent said they were most likely to buy it versus 18 percent of the Apple faithful who said they’d be more inclined to buy Amazon’s Echo over Apple’s device.

What about the overall survey group?

According to AppleInsider:

Within the overall survey group 17 percent said they were mostly like to buy an Echo, and 11 percent the cheaper Echo Dot. Only 9 percent said they would go for a HomePod, below the Google Home’s 11 percent.

At $349, HomePod is pricier than Google’s and Amazon’s inexpensive speakers at $129 and $139, respectively. 57 percent of respondents said price was “Very Important” to them in a smart speaker while for 51 percent speaker quality was more important than the price.

Introduced at the Worldwide Developers Conference last week, HomePod beats both Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home in terms of audio quality. The device features a four-inch subwoofer system that delivers clean bass without distortion and as many as seven beam-forming tweeters, each using its own amplifier for sound quality.

Driven by Apple’s A8 chip, HomePod provides sound awareness technology that’s able to detect when the device is against walls. After mapping its surroundings, it adjusts the sound output accordingly so that the most of the sound is spread out into a wide-open area instead of being muffled against a wall.

We should point out that this isn’t a totally fair research because HomePod is still work-in-progress and Apple has not really shown off any other features beyond Siri interactions, HomeKit controls and Apple Music integration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hw9skL-IXc

Even if HomePad makes its December debut with only the aforesaid features, Apple is almost certainly going to add additional capabilities over time via software updates, just as Google and Amazon have been doing with their smart home speakers.

Priced at $349, HomePod will launch in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia this December before gradually expanding to the rest of the world throughout 2018.