US consumers are depending more on smart speakers

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The report yielded three key findings in the evolving smart speaker market:

Usage of smart speakers among owners increases with time.
Fifty-one percent of smart speaker owners use the device more often than they did in their first month of ownership. Only 16% of smart speaker owners say they use the device less often compared to the first month of owning it.
Smart speakers are cannibalizing usage of other technology including traditional radio, smartphones, TVs, and tablets.
Thirty-nine percent of smart-speaker owners say their speaker is replacing time spent with traditional AM/FM radio, 34% say it's replacing smartphone usage, 30% say TV usage, and 27% say tablet usage. Meanwhile, 17% of consumers say the time they spend using their smart speaker is replacing that of traditional speakers — this is notable considering the devices are, at their core, speakers.
Smart speakers are spurring usage of voice assistants on other platforms.
Fourty-four percent of smart speaker owners are using their voice assistant on their smartphone more since receiving a smart speaker. And 64% of smart speaker owners are interested in using the technology in their cars.

The findings highlight the massive opportunity for uptake of audio-focused smart speakers. The report suggests that the audio quality of smart speakers may not compare to that of traditional speakers considering 83% of respondents still rely on their traditional speaker devices to listen to music.

Samsung, which plans to release a Bixby-powered smart speaker in 2018, has the greatest opportunity in this realm. The company plans to focus on the audio quality of its smart speaker to help set its device apart from Amazon's and Google's smart speakers, both of which lag in audio quality, according to Strategy Analytics.

Here are some of the key takeaways: