The fiercely competitive world of personalized AI devices is proving difficult for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to crack into, as sales of its new HomePod smart device are failing to keep up with Amazon’s line of Echo devices.
A news article by Bloomberg, which cites data from Slice Intelligence, says that during its first 10 weeks of sales, HomePod won just 10% of the smart speaker market while Amazon.com Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Echo devices garnered 73% of the market. Google Home, meanwhile, earned 14% in the contest.
Piles of HomePods remain in inventory, according to the Bloomberg story, and Apple store workers at some locations are selling fewer than 10 HomePods a day.
READ: Apple may scrap iTunes to pole vault Apple Music subscriber base beyond 40 mln
Apple recently poached John Giannandrea, Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) head of search and artificial intelligence at Google, in a move that is designed to raise its game in the AI field.
The recruitment of Giannandrea is regarded as a coup for the company. Google, Amazon, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:MSFT) are all thought to be more advanced in the artificial intelligence field than Apple as they have access to more data on their users than Apple does.
In pre-market trading, Apple shares inched up 0.65% to US$172.44.