https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-slices-homepod-price-to-299/ > Apple started selling its Siri-powered HomePod speaker in early February to compete with Amazon's Alexa-enabled Echo devices and the Google Assistant-powered Google Home. > However, Apple's struggled to catch up with its rivals, which both offer $50 version of their speakers. As of December 2018, only six percent of smart speaker users in the US had a HomePod, according to a report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, out of an install base of 66 million smart speakers.