China 's smart speaker market grew by almost three ##fold in 2018 , driven by sales of low - cost phones offered by Alibaba , Baidu and Xiaomi , leaving it second only to the US . However , only 11 million — or around — the 829 million Chinese internet users had smart speaker apps on their phones , compared to 53 million in the US . Analysts said immature technology and poor device performance are to blame for smart speakers ' lack of popularity in China .
China's smart speaker market grew by almost 100 times in 2018, driven by sales of low-cost devices offered by Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi, leaving it second only to the US. However, only 11 million—or around 1.3%—of the 829 million Chinese internet users had smart speaker apps on their phones, compared to 53 million in the US. Analysts said immature technology and poor device performance are to blame for smart speakers' lack of popularity in China.