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| Mickey Kim, director for product planning and partnerships for Google's Asia-Pacific region, introduces its AI speakers Google Home and Google Home Mini during a press conference in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap |
By Baek Byung-yeul
Google will begin selling its two artificial intelligence (AI) speakers -- Google Home and Google Home Mini -- here on Sept. 18, the company said Tuesday.
Google's entry into the local market is expected to further intensify competition in the country's rapidly growing AI speaker market as Samsung, LG, KT and other local information technology firms scramble to defend their home turf.
Powered by Google's AI, Google Assistant, Google Home is the world's second-most popular AI speaker following Amazon's Echo. Though it was first introduced in the U.S. in late 2016, about one and a half years later than Amazon, the worldwide market share gap between the two is rapidly decreasing.
Google explained that it took time to introduce its speakers in Korea as it has not been long since its AI assistant began supporting Korean.
"Since we introduced the Korean language version of Google Assistant last year, Android smartphone users here can use the AI assistant service in Korean. We also recently enabled them to use Google Assistant in their vehicles through Android Auto. And we developed Google Home to allow consumers to use the AI assistant in various devices," Mickey Kim, director for product planning and partnerships for Google's Asia-Pacific region, said during a press conference in Hannam-dong, Seoul.
Google Korea said it will start taking pre-orders for AI speakers starting Tuesday and will officially roll them out on Sept. 18. The price tag for Google Home will be 145,000 won ($129) while the hockey-puck-sized Google Home Mini will be 59,900 won. The speakers will also come with a free six-month trial of YouTube Premium so consumers can enjoy YouTube content without watching ads.
Kim said Google's AI speakers are suitable for home use as they can recognize up to six different voices. The speakers are also bilingual so they can respond to any two of the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Korean.
The other strength of Google Home speakers is that their AI assistant is available on more than 5,000 smart devices from more than 225 manufacturers. In Korea, Google Home users can voice control LG Electronics' home appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines, Coway's air purifiers and Kyungdong Navien's boilers.
The global AI speaker market has been emerging at a higher rate with the rise of AI and internet of things (IoT) technologies and Korea is estimated to have the world's third largest AI speaker market following the U.S. and China.
According to the data from market researcher Canalys, the U.S. had the largest share in the AI speaker market in the first half of this year with 45.6 percent, China was second with 20 percent and Korea was third with 8.1 percent. The number of AI speakers in the world is expected to reach 100 million by the end of the year. This is 2.5 times higher than a year earlier and the figure will grow to 225 million by 2020.
It remains to be seen how much impact the Google Home speakers will have on the Korean market where there is no dominant leader.
In the domestic AI speaker market, local tech firms have been fiercely competing to take leadership. Ever since SK Telecom, the country's No. 1 mobile carrier, introduced its AI speaker NUGU, No. 2 mobile carrier KT, LG Electronics and internet firms Naver and Kakao have also rolled out their speakers.
Samsung Electronics is also scheduled to release its AI speaker soon. The Korean tech giant unveiled its first AI speaker Galaxy Home last month.
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