MediaTek processors have powered nearly 50 percent of the 151 million smart speakers and smart displays in 2020, according to Strategy Analytics.
MediaTek has increased its share by six percentage points in 2020 and it has more than doubled its market share over the past two years.
Synaptics was the second largest player in 2020 followed by Allwinner and Amlogic. Synaptics has become a major player in the smart speaker business following its acquisition of Marvell’s Multimedia Solutions unit in 2017 and the company will enjoy the largest market share gain during 2021.
The top five apps processor vendors supplied the processor chipsets for 87 percent of all smart speakers sold in 2020.
“MediaTek has built up a strong presence across a diverse set of industry verticals including in the smart home” says Chirag Upadhyay, Senior Analyst, Intelligent Home group. “The company’s scale and ties with Taiwanese foundries have made it an ideal partner for many of the world’s leading smart speaker OEMs.”
Leading smart speaker vendors are Amazon, Alibaba and Baidu.
The global smart speaker market, including smart displays, is forecast to reach 163 million units in 2021, a growth of 21 percent, according to Canalys.
With demand for stay-home entertainment expected to increase, global platform vendors have released new smart speakers and displays, ensuring value and availability. The global smart speaker market is expected to emerge stronger in 2021, with markets outside China expected to recover and contribute a larger portion of the annual growth.
Canalys Research Manager Jason Low said: “Amazon and Google are striving to spark interest by breaking the speaker mould, each taking different design routes aimed to obtain sound quality improvements, not only with physical design changes, but also introducing additional elements of computational audio. In the future, a customer’s listening experience will be increasingly adaptable and driven by AI.”
