Sydney VX agency VERSA reveals rapid uptake of smart speakers in first Australian voice report

A new report from VERSA – leading Australian enterprise-level Voice Experience (VX) agency – has revealed approximately 1.35 million Australians now have a smart speaker with a voice-activated assistant at home, with first year local sales of devices rapidly outpacing other lead adopter nations including the US and UK.

Smart speaker ownership has grown in Australia by 200% in less than four months, and is being driven primarily by Gen Z, Millennials, younger families and city dwellers. Here, first-to-market Google Home leads in terms of take-up, with devices present in 12% of homes and 7% of workplaces, followed by Amazon Echo in 2% of homes and 3% of workplaces.

One in three (34%) Australians are also now considering purchasing a device in the next 12 months (25% for themselves and 12% as gifts). Here, the Christmas retail shopping season is set to spike the market, with global trends indicating almost 50% of annual voice enabled speaker sales happen during this period.

VERSA managing director, Kath Blackham, said that Australia is now clearly in the “Age of Ask”, making it imperative for local brands to ensure their content is optimised for voice to maximise their opportunity of being “found” and engaged with.

Says Blackham: “Global adoption rates have exceeded all forecasts, including growth of the US market by fifteen-fold since 2016 alone. This, combined with sales trends in Australia, indicates that we are likely to experience a massive boom in the coming years. Voice can no longer be written off as a fad, and if brands miss this moment in terms of shifting how they produce and think about their online content, they risk being missed within the nation’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer channel.”

According to the report, usage trends in Australia show fairly simple interactions with smart speakers to date. For those with smart speakers, two in three (64%) use them daily, mainly for playing music (61%), checking the weather (60%), listening to the news (49%) or movies/TV (39%) and helping to control smart home applications (37%).

Blackham said that voice commerce (vCommerce) presents a major opportunity for Australian brands, with VERSA predicting 16% of Australian consumers (4 million) intend to use their smart speakers for shopping in 2019.

Says Blackham: “To date, simple voice purchases such as movie tickets and home food delivery have been the most popular amongst Australian early adopters. And we are proud to have helped pioneer this sector in Australia, having built bespoke voice solutions for clients including Domino’s Pizza, Village Cinemas, Flight Centre, GoGet, CoastalWatch and What’s on Melbourne.

“Commerce is expected to hit $40 billion in the US and UK by 20202, and the forecast for Australia is strong, meaning other retail industries including groceries, books, clothing and electronic goods need to be planning for voice and looking at it as strong growth opportunity.”

To find out more about Australian voice trends, download The Voice Report 2019 at http://report.versa.agency.