The debut of HomePod mini brought a big jump in sales that continues almost a year later. Shipments of Apple’s smart speakers increased a whopping 92% last quarter when compared to the same period of 2020.

And HomePod mini was the second best selling smart speaker globally.

HomePod mini jumpstarts interest ion Apple smart speakers

In Q3, Apple shipped 4.0 million HomePods, according to the analysts at Strategy Analytics. It shipped just 2.1 million in the same quarter of the previous year.

The difference is the launch of HomePod mini in November 2020. As its name indicates, this smart speaker is much smaller than its predecessor. And the same goes for the price tag — it’s $99, down from the $399 of its larger and now discontinued predecessor.

But there’s a long way to go

Despite the significant increase in sales, Apple is in only fifth place in the global smart speaker market. It accounted for 10.2% of Q3 shipments, according to Strategy Analytics, up from 5.9%.

But Amazon has 28.9% of the market, while Google has 20.5%. The next two spots are taken up by companies that sell entirely in the Chinese market.

Part of what’s slowing Apple’s sales is the relatively high price of its product. While HomePod mini costs far less than the original version, Google’s Nest Mini was the global top-selling smart speaker in Q3 2021, and it costs $49.

And it surely doesn’t help Apple’s Siri voice assistant — which HomePod depends on — is widely regarded as less useful than Amazon’s or Google’s equivalents.