Sales of Apple's smart speakers are falling – production is being cut

Apple's HomePod smart speaker hasn't sold as well as expected. Bloomberg reports, That the company has cut back on the production of smart speakers and that there are too many speakers in Apple stores' stock.

The speaker, which was introduced last summer, was originally promised for the end of 2017, but at the last minute its release was postponed. Finally, it arrived in stores in January of this year. Even then, the speaker was still unfinished, as the creation of the stereo pair and multi-room support will only be coming later as a software update. Currently, the features are in the beta testing phase.

At $349, the HomePod is quite clearly more expensive than the Google and Amazon speakers. That's has been praised in reviews In terms of sound quality, but criticized for limiting its entry into the Apple ecosystem, which may also be a factor in the low sales. Additionally, Amazon and Google have already established their positions in the smart speaker market. Bloomberg reports that there was indeed a lot of pre-orders, but sales have since declined. It remains to be seen whether Apple will release a cheaper smart speaker like the one has been speculated.

The Bloomberg article can be found here from here.