Apple could lower the price of the homepod

Sales of Apple's HomePod "could be well below market expectations" this year, prestigious KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said. For this reason, Apple may be considering lowering the price of the HomePod in order to give the numbers a boost.

Price and design, keys to the low sales of the HomePod

According to Kuo's writing, "We understand that the market expects HomePod shipments to reach 5-10 million units in fiscal 2018, versus our forecast of just 2.0-2.5 million units." But those figures are especially scarce. The "big failure" in HomePod sales, the analyst continues, could be attributable to both its design and price, among other factors.

The HomePod's high price, at $ 349, "could undermine demand despite the excellent sound quality." And to this we should add the Siri effect, which, according to the analyst, provides an “uninspiring user experience” compared to its competitors, such as the Amazon Echo with Alexa (currently the leader in the US market) and Google. Home with the Google Assistant.

And adding fuel to the fire, Kuo said that the potentially mediocre sales of the HomePod highlight the "underlying concerns" in the development of artificial intelligence by Apple, as we have learned through MacRumors.

That Apple is considering lowering the price of its speaker is, at least, not credible, even more considering that this is not the company's policy and that, at the moment, it is hardly sold in a handful of countries. That he plans to do it taking advantage of the launch of a second generation, presumably not before 2019, is another story. Also, does Apple really care about HomePod sales? Doesn't it give you the impression that it has simply followed the market trend by presenting a product well below what is expected from the company?