Alexa, Take Center Stage
As smart speakers become ubiquitous and teens get hooked, new studies show how users
are engaging with music through the devices — and how the music business can take advantage
BY MICAH SINGLETON
IVE YEARS AGO,
when Amazon first intro-
duced its voice- activated
Echo smart speaker, it was
advertised as a product that could
make a grocery shopping list, tell
users the weather — and play music
from Prime Music or iHeartRadio.
But as the smart speaker market
grows, music is becoming the focus
for device owners.
Music engagement through smart
speakers has grown overall: Earlier
this year, the Smart Audio Report
from NPR and Edison Research
stated that 77% of U.S. smart speaker
owners use them to play music every
week. This year, 17% of U.S. music
listeners say they play music through
smart speakers in a given week, up
from 15% last year, according to Niel-
sen Music’s new 360 2019 U.S. report,
provided exclusively to Billboard.
The biggest growth has been among
Gen Z music listeners, as usage
among teens jumped from 9% in 2018
to 20% this year, a 122% increase,
according to the Nielsen study.
In April, tech analysis firm
Canalys said it expects the global
install base for smart speakers to
pass 200 million devices by the end
of 2019. Since Amazon kicked off
the smart speaker arms race, Google
launched a line of Home speakers in
2016, Apple started selling its Home-
Pod last year, Facebook debuted its
Portal device last October and earlier
this year Sonos added Google Assis-
tant to its home audio speakers to go
with Alexa, which became available
on the platform in 2017.
The smart speaker takeover has
some wondering what the stream-
ing business could look like once
it shifts further away from people
typing search terms into query boxes
and more toward voice-operated
speakers. “This whole topic is less
about devices and more about just a
gigantic, tectonic shift from text as a
motor of interactivity to voice,” says
Larry Miller, director of the music
business program at NYU
Steinhardt. “Over the next
several years, it’s going to
be much less about talking
to or talking at or interact-
ing with your Amazon or
Google device than talking
to the voice-based operat-
ing system that interacts
with your life. This is a shift
in the way that we fundamentally ask
for the information and entertain-
ment that we want, and in music this
is a critical issue.”
As smart speaker adoption contin-
ues to explode and music streaming
on such devices takes on a bigger
role, particularly among younger
listeners, the music business has
worked to adapt to the model. That
has meant streamlining metadata,
addressing fluctuations
in user behavior and
creating hyperpersonal-
ized playlists.
Smart speakers are also
playing an increasing role
in how music listeners
discover new artists
and songs, with 61% of
owners saying that new
Market
122%
YEAR-OVER-YEAR
INCREASE IN
TEENAGE MUSIC
LISTENERS USING
SMART SPEAKERS
TO PLAY MUSIC
ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN SNOOK SEPTEMBER 28, 2019 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 1 7
● Motown Records founder BERRY GORDY announced his retirement ahead of his 90th birthday. ● The Latin Recording Academy appointed MANUEL ABUD COO.
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PG. 22 THE HI-RES AUDIO MARKET PG. 26 THE QUEST FOR A CHINESE POP STAR PG. 28 RESERVOIR CEO Q&A