What They Say
The US ITC found against Google in a patent case brought by Sonos over its smart speakers, confirming an earlier judgement. The New York Times reported that shipments of Google’s smart speakers, Chromecast devices and Pixel smartphones could all be affected. Google is said to be re-designing its products to avoid the patents, while Sonos said that the firm should “pay a fair royalty for the technologies it has misappropriated”. Sonos has claimed that Google has infringed more than 100 patents and has proposed a licensing deal.
Back in August, Sonos said that Amazon had also infringed the patents, but the firm was not confident of taking on both firms at the same time.
What We Think
Amazon’s dominance of the market has declined since 2017, according to the data from Statista, but Google and Amazon do seem to have around 47% of the market between them in Q3 2021. (BR)
Smart speaker global market shares – source:Statista
