Deloitte Global is predicting smart speaker sales will grow by over 60% in 2019 and by years end more than 250 million units will have been sold.
 

As part of their 2019 predictions they have forecast 2018 sales of 98 million units, worth US$4.3 billion, will grow to be worth US$7 billion next year and this growth rate will make smart speakers the fastest-growing connected device worldwide.
 
Deloitte says the biggest opportunity for growth next year is in sales should take off in countries in which the majority of the population speaks Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), French, Spanish,
Italian, or Japanese, as well as English.
 
According to Deloitte research, the smart speaker was the device with the highest year-over-year increase in ownership through mid-2018 in six of the seven markets in which they were available from multiple major brands (urban China , the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, with only Germany lagging).
 
In Q2 of 2018, Deloitte says sales were up by 187% year by year, and despite their predictions of continuing growth, that expansion is slowing.
 
According to their research 9% of Australians and Canadians own at least one smart speaker, behind urban China (22%), USA (20%), UK (12%) and Germany (10%).
 
Potential demand for smart speakers could be in the many billions of units, and possibly higher than smartphones.
 
Hotel chains such as The Marriott International Group are planning to deploy the speakers in some of its hotels with 100,000 units going to China alone. Wynn Las Vegas has already installed them in all of their 4,748 rooms and Deloitte says if this trend continues, many of the worlds estimated 17.5 million hotel rooms could feature smart speakers in the next decade.
 
Smart speakers could move into hospitals with one Sydney hospital already trialling them as an upgrade to the bedside call button.
 
The main use of the devices is for playing music (60%) and weather updates (52%), but if the market is to continue growing beyond 2020, the device should have multiple applications beyond just playing music or speaking a weather forecast.