Apple’s Smart Home Strategy Has a Long Way to Go

For all of its successes, Apple has had its share of duds: TV monitors and automotive technology never launched; and VisionPro struggles to attract any interest. Count Apple’s smart home strategy as a dud, too, at least for now.

Well-sourced Apple reporter Mark Gurman at Bloomberg refreshed our understanding of Apple’s smart home strategy last week. He expects Apple to push hard to grab its share of homes with advanced technology, including HomePods that support a wider range of accessories, Apple Intelligence integration, better HomeOS software, and possibly screen based home devices.

“It still won’t be an easy task”, he notes, and we support that finding with our data. First, we see clearly that Apple has a small fraction of the US market for smart speakers (Chart 1). Note these figures come from our semi-annual survey of US smart speaker buyers, not our quarterly survey of Apple customers.