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The Continual Growth of the Global Portable Speaker Market

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Ellen Parker
The Continual Growth of the Global Portable Speaker Market

It’s anticipated that the global portable speaker market will grow at a steady CAGR of 11.14% during the period between 2017 and 2021. Before we delve further into this, let’s begin with a brief categorization of portable speakers. These can be grouped into one of two categories: wired and wireless. There has been a sharp decline in wired usage in years past as consumers opt for their wireless counterparts for their ease of use and functionality. In fact, the wireless portable speaker segment accounted for the majority market share during 2016. More specifically, its segment accounted for 76.12% of the market. In a dollar amount, this translates to $6.91 billion in 2016 and is expected to grow $4.81 billion through 2021 for a value of $11.72 billion. 

Now, without further, let’s get into the brass tacks.

What’s Driving the Portable Speaker System Growth?

Smart Homes
One of the forces behind the growth of portable speakers is the growth of the ‘smart home.’ Through the Internet of Things (IoT), consumers can readily connect electronic devices, media and entertainment gadgets to a home network. This, in turn, allows subscribed users to access digital content such as music, movies and images stored in the ubiquitous cloud through WiFi. Similarly, Ujjwal Doshi, a lead analyst for the tech research company, Technavio, said that, “Wireless portable speakers facilitate communication between the various devices connected to the home network and provide easy streaming of content like music and videos.” This connection of devices through a home network leads to our next driving force: multi-room streaming.

Multi-Room Streaming

One of the top trends driving the growth of portable speakers is the ability to stream in multiple rooms. The advent of networked audio devices means that a portable speaker system like the HEOS 1 can wirelessly connect to other speakers for a multi-room listening experience. In essence, networked audio allows for the separation between a system’s physical and logical connections, resulting in a single network that can support multiple channels. Because of this, multiple speakers can connect to a master speaker and sync audio between them. Adding to this functionality is TimeSync, a feature brought to you by the Wi-Fi Alliance that allows WiFi speakers to sync with each other, even if they’re from competing brands. All of this combines to a system of speakers that wirelessly connect with each other, and in most cases, a cloud-hosted music streaming service.

Cloud-Hosted Streaming

Another driving force behind the growth of portable speakers is the increase in cloud-hosted music streaming services such as Spotify, Tidal, SoundCloud, Apple Music and more. Because of cloud computing, we can now legally access online music that is stored in a remote server. As a matter of fact, as this article explains, digital downloads have plummeted (down 25% from 2015) as music streaming continues to rise (up 39.2% from 2015). With the wide and increasing availability of WiFi networks, it seems that the music industry is poised to stay on a streaming path as portable speakers join them in a path for continual growth.

Continued Growth

Apart from increasing popularity of smart homes and cloud-hosted streaming, other forces behind this growth are innovations in portable technology such as improved battery life, greater efficiency of devices, and waterproofing for outdoor use and harsh environments. If all goes as it has and as is expected, the portable speaker system market will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

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Ellen Parker
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