Shoppers Interested in HomePod More Likely to Buy Amazon Echo

A rough third of people in the U.S. are interested in Apple’s new HomePod speaker in theory, though are more likely to purchase an Amazon Echo in practice, according to a new survey published Wednesday.

Out of 2,200 people polled, roughly 33 percent of them said that they were either somewhat or very interested in the HomePod, according to the survey conducted June 8 through 12 by Morning Consult. For current Apple users, the number of interested individuals jumped up to 45 percent — though that number apparently slipped to 40 percent after a side-by-side comparison of the devices. Similarly, the number of people interested in HomePod slipped to 30 percent after a similar comparison.

Notably, and a bit surprisingly, interest was even higher among those who already owned Amazon Echo or Google Home owners. As Marketing Land’s Greg Sterling put it, “while the absolute numbers are smaller, the intensity of the interest is higher among those who currently own the competing devices.” For owners of Amazon Echo devices, the number of interested people reached 64 percent, while for Home owners, that number jumped to 73 percent. When it came to which device consumers will actually buy, the numbers changed a bit. Among the group, 17 percent said that they were more likely to buy an Echo (with 11 percent focused on the cheaper Echo Dot device). About 9 percent said that they’d purchase a HomePod, slightly lower than the 11 percent who said they’d buy a Google Home.

As far as which variables in a home speaker consumers held to be the most important, price won out — with 57 percent of respondents saying that price was “very important” in a smart speaker. That might not bode well for Cupertino, as Apple’s HomePod is a premium device at $349. By contrast, Amazon’s cheapest Echo is only $39.99, and the Google Home is $129. On the other hand, 51 percent of those polled said that speaker or audio quality was also “very important” — and, according to early reviews, the HomePod has the clear advantage in that category.

You can view the full results from the Morning Consult survey here and here.