Twenty-six per cent of Australians own a smart speaker and of those, 67% use it daily and 88% use it weekly, according to the Smart Audio report, released today by Edison Research and Commercial Radio Australia.
The research was presented to advertisers and the audio industry by Commercial Radio Australia. CRA head of digital Jaime Chaux hosted and Megan Lazovick, vice president at Edison Research, talked through the key findings.
One of the key points from the research was that smart speaker owners were listening to more audio. The streaming of live radio is a key part of smart speaker usage. Although there was no split revealed between the streaming of live radio, podcasts or music.
CRA chief executive officer Joan Warner said: “The increasing prevalence of smart speakers in Australian households extends access to radio to more places and more devices and demonstrates that consumers value audio and are open to the increasing possibilities of voice assistant technology,” she said.
Twenty-four per cent of smart speaker owners have three or more in their home. The average number of smart speakers in the household rose to 1.9 from 1.7 a year ago. Sixty-one per cent of smart speaker owners plan to purchase another smart speaker in the future.
The study found that 42% of Australians say they currently use a voice assistant such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
Music, including from online services and radio, is the top use case with 65% of smart speaker owners requesting this weekly, followed by asking for the weather (56%) and asking a general question (53%). Forty-one per cent of users request the news.
There is positive sentiment for voice assistants – 70% of users said it makes their life easier and 41% wouldn’t want to go back to life without assistants.
Nearly one in two Australians have used a voice assistant to interact with a brand, product or service or to start or complete a product purchase or repurchase.
Forty per cent of smart speaker owners say they spent less time with other technology since getting their smart speaker. Nearly half of smart speaker owners who own a smartphone said they are using voice assistants on their phone more often since getting a smart speaker.
“Smart speakers have fundamentally changed the way people interact with media. The technology is influencing usage on other devices such as the smartphone.” said Lazovick. “It is a good bet that the Australian population will continue to grow more comfortable with this technology and opportunities will grow for those in audio and advertising if they embrace smart audio too.”
The Smart Audio report involved a national online survey of 5,000 adults aged 18+ and was conducted from 19 April to 5 May 2021.
The research was commissioned by CRA and TalkVia and is available to download here.