Last year it was rumored that Samsung wanted to toss their hat into the ring with their own smart speaker powered by Bixby. Then the rumors suggested that this was no longer the case, but late last year those rumors came back again indicating that Samsung’s Bixby speaker could launch in the first half of 2018.
Now according to a report from CNET, Samsung Mobile’s head DJ Koh confirmed that the company is working on a Bixby smart speaker that would launch in the second half of 2018. This was also confirmed in a report from The Wall Street Journal, but when pressed for more details like a specific launch date, Koh was quoted as saying, “Give me more time.”
Given that we’ve seen Samsung launch smart home appliances such as TVs and refrigerators, we suppose a Bixby-powered set of speakers wouldn’t be completely out of the question. However the smart speaker market is starting to get crowded and as Apple has found out for themselves, being late means only getting a tiny sliver of the overall pie.
At the moment the smart speaker market is dominated by the likes of Amazon and Google, with Apple only accounting for 3% of the market with the HomePod. It is unclear as to how Samsung plans on setting themselves apart with their own offering, but we suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.