Edison Research and Commercial Radio Australia recently released the Smart Audio report, which detailed results of a national online survey of 5,000 adults aged 18+, conducted April 19 – May 5, 2021. The research was commissioned by CRA and TalkVia. The Smart Audio Report includes additional data from The Infinite Dial Australia and The Infinite Dial U.S., which were conducted by Edison Research.
The study found that 26% of Australians own a smart speaker, and of those, 67% use it daily and 88% use it weekly.
“The increasing prevalence of smart speakers in Australian households extends access to radio to more places and more devices and demonstrates that consumers value audio and are open to the increasing possibilities of voice assistant technology,” said CRA chief executive officer Joan Warner. She added that 59% of smart speaker owners said they were listening to more audio since their purchase.
Twenty-four percent of smart speaker owners have three or more in their home. The average number of smart speakers in the household rose to 1.9 from 1.7 a year ago. Sixty-one percent of smart speaker owners plan to purchase another smart speaker in the future.
The study found that 42% of Australians say they currently use a voice assistant such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
Music, including from online services and radio, is the top use case with 65% of smart speaker owners requesting this weekly, followed by asking for the weather (56%) and asking a general question (53%).
Nearly one in two Australians have used a voice assistant to interact with a brand, product or service or to start or complete a product purchase or repurchase. Forty percent of smart speaker owners say they spent less time with other technology since getting their smart speaker.
“Smart speakers have fundamentally changed the way people interact with media. The technology is influencing usage on other devices such as the smartphone.” said Megan Lazovick, Vice President at Edison Research. “It is a good bet that the Australian population will continue to grow more comfortable with this technology and opportunities will grow for those in audio and advertising if they embrace smart audio too.”
Download a copy of the report or listen to a video presentation of the results here.
