Photo/Shetuwang

Jan.14 (NBD) -- Apple plans to launch its HomePod smart speaker in China on Friday this week, said the company Monday on its website.

The Siri-controlled speaker is featured with an Apple A8 system-on-chip and six microphones, and is able to sense its location and tune the music to the listener accordingly.

Apple CEO Tim Cook even promoted the smart device on Sina Weibo, the twitter-like social media in China, saying he cannot wait for customers in the country experiencing their favorite music on HomePod.

It is noticed that Apple began selling HomePod a year ago in the U.S., and has since rolled it out to a handful of countries, mostly in Europe and North America.

HomePod finally made its way to China, but the timing is tricky. As sales of iPhones worldwide, especially in China, shrank drastically in the fourth quarter of last year, Apple slashed its revenue guidance for the first quarter of fiscal 2019.

Given that, Apple is expecting to expand the smart speaker service in the market.

The latest report on smart speaker released by research firm Strategy Analytics shows that global smart speaker shipments grew nearly 200 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2018, reaching 22.7 million units.

China, whose sales volume of smart speakers surges to 5.8 million units in the quarter, has become the second largest smart apeaker market across the world.

Though the market is promising, but it is not known whether the late comer Apple can stand out in the crowded market. 

In the third quarter of last year, Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi are among the top five vendors of smart speakers worldwide in terms of shipment. Baidu, in particular, made strong ground in the sector following the launch of its first low-cost speaker.

In addition, there are many other competitors for Apple in China, including online retailer JD.com and intelligent speech company iFlytek.

While most of the smart speakers offered by Chinese enterprises are only several hundred yuan, HomePod priced at 2,799 yuan (414.3 U.S. dollars) could be not appealing to Chinese consumers.

However, some industry insiders still believed that Apple's HomePod would be a good news for other market players.

Li Zhifei, founder and CEO of Mobvoi, Inc., also known as Chumenwenwen, said that HomePod will redefine the price and product recognition of smart speakers in the market and believed that consumers will pay more attention to user experience and quality instead of price only.

Li estimated that the first batch of shipment of HomePod will be likely to reach 1 million units in the country and at least 5-6 million smart speakers will be sold throughout a year.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn