What a fantastic year for smart speakers! 2018 hit an all-time high with around 41% of U.S. consumers now owning a smart speaker with voice-activation. This percentage is up from last year’s 21.5% and is excepted to rise with the popularity of Alexa and Google Home devices.

In a series of reports released in December 2018, from RBC Capital Markets, the Alexa-enabled devices reached 31% compared to the 41% overall for smart speakers. The forecast is that Alexa’s total revenue by 2021 would generate between $18 billion to $19 billion. This revenue would be based on device sales, incremental voice shopping sales, and other platform revenues.

Alexa has become a “critical mass platform” according to RBC reports, with more than 100 million Alexa-enabled devices installed throughout the U.S.

RBC also mentioned in the reports the progress Amazon is making with Alexa’s development including the launch of Alexa Guard. This new feature listens for break-ins and smoke detector alarms – a second set of ears you could say. There is also voice control when the internet is down, location-based reminders, expanded calling options and much more.

Google Home was another popular device in 2018, with Google devices rising to 23%, up from 8% in 2017. The forecast states that each household owns around 1.7 devices, which means that 43 million Google Home devices are installed in the U.S., can you believe that? As of this year, Google Home has an estimated revenue of $3.4 billion and the report predicts that by 2021 the revenue will grow to $8.2 billion.

In the consumer survey asked by analysts, they found that Apple’s HomePad’s share of U.S smart speaker market remained low with only 5%. Needless to say, the consumers have spoken with Amazon’s smart speak market being 66% and Google at 29%.

“Hey, Alexa – Have you heard? Regular speakers are a thing of the past, the smart speakers are here to stay!”