Analyst Says Beats Will Launch Siri-Powered Speaker

Gene Munster, Apple analyst and venture capitalist, is confident that Beats will soon launch a Siri-powered speaker.

Munster took to his Loup Ventures blog to expand on his forecast ahead of Apple’s annual developer conference. WWDC 2018 will kick off on Monday, June 4th, but here’s what this expert anticipates seeing:

“Siri integration with Beats. The knock on HomePod is its $349 price is about 2-3x the price of a typical smart speaker. We believe Apple can advance its digital assistant ambitions with a $250 Beats-branded option that does not compromise HomePod’s $349 price point.

We are currently modeling for HomePod to have a low-to-mid teens digital assistant market share, and this Beats integration does not change our market share outlook.”

Munster’s thoughts seem to focus primarily on price point and digital assistant; however, price point is not the only factor that determines market success for smart assistants. Indeed, Google Assistant has already conquered the world based on sheer availability alone (not to mention conversational skills) while Alexa lets you build your own skills.

In any case, Siri is already available in the Beats Studio3 Wireless Headphones, so there’s a big chance this prediction will be confirmed next week. If it does, it will be interesting to see what else a Beats and Apple collaboration could offer.