A fresh report on voice usage in Australia shows 1.35 million Australians now have a smart speaker with voice activated assistant at home, 200 per cent growth in just four months.
This presents a major opportunity for Australian brands, with four million local consumers (16 per cent) predicted to use their smart speakers for shopping in 2019.
Versa’s The Voice Report 2019 also showed one in three (34 per cent) Australians are considering purchasing a device in the next 12 months, and low involvement purchases, like movie tickets and food delivery, have been the most popular to date, but more involved purchases such as clothing, technology, accommodation and cars are within reach.
According to the report, Australia’s adoption of devices is rapidly outpacing other lead adopter nations, including the US and UK, and is being driven primarily by Gen Z, Millennials, younger families, and city dwellers.
Google Home leads in terms of take-up, with devices present in 12 per cent of homes and seven per cent of workplaces, followed by Amazon Echo in two per cent of homes and three per cent of workplaces.
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.
“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, 64 per cent use them daily, mainly for playing music (61 per cent), checking the weather (60 per cent), listening to the news (49 per cent) or movies/TV (39 per cent) and helping to control smart home applications (37 per cent).
“'VCommerce [voice commerce] is expected to hit $40 billion in the US and UK by 2020, 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,” she said.
The report was informed by a survey undertaken in September/October with 2000 Australian consumers aged between 18-65.
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