Apple's Siri the Most Popular Virtual Assistant With a 35 Percent Market Share: Report

Siri is the most popular, but certainly not the most useful.

By Harpreet Singh | Updated: 19 December 2019 18:15 IST

Apple's Siri the Most Popular Virtual Assistant With a 35 Percent Market Share: Report

Apple's Siri is the most popular virtual assistant across the world

Highlights

Apple has been shipping iPhones with Siri since 2011
Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa share a small market share
Microsoft Cortana is at the second spot in terms of market share

Virtual assistants are just about everywhere. From the smartphone in your pocket to a smart speaker sitting on your coffee table, these virtual assistants help power the next major interface after touch—voice. Apple, Google, and Amazon are known for their popular virtual assistants Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. But which of these virtual assistants is the most popular one out there? If you guessed Amazon Alexa, you're wrong. It's not Google Assistant either. Apple's Siri seems to be the most popular virtual assistant right now.

According to a new report by a market research firm called Futuresource Consulting, Siri is the most popular virtual assistant across the world with a 35 percent market share. Microsoft's Cortana is, surprisingly, at the second spot with a 22 percent share. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa account for 9 percent and 4 percent of the market respectively.

The report attributes Apple's growing success of the iPhone and its newly released AirPods Pro to the success of Siri. Apple has been shipping Siri with its iPhone models since 2011. Microsoft's Cortana is present in all Windows 10-powered PCs which explains its second position in the list.

“Growth presently continues unabated, as virtual assistants become a common feature across the Consumer Electronics and Automotive sectors,” says Simon Forrest, Principal Technology Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “Indeed, 2020 will be the year when shipments of voice-enabled products overtake those with no voice capability.”

While Siri and Cortana may be present on more devices globally, Google and Amazon continue to dominate the smart speaker market which is powered by the companies' respective virtual assistants. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa also perform better when it comes to understanding users' voice-based queries and responding with a relevant answer.

Virtual assistants have been programmed to sound more natural, imitating human-like responses. Amazon also introduced emotions to Alexa, ensuring more engagement as the virtual assistant starts sounding more human-like than a plain robot.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Further reading: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, Siri, Apple

Harpreet Singh

Email Harpreet

Harpreet is the community manager at Gadgets 360. He loves all things tech, and can be found hunting for good deals when he is not shopping online. He has written about deals and e-commerce in India for many years, as well as covering social media and breaking technology news. More