52% of Smart Speaker Owners Control TVs with Voice: Strategy Analytics

75 million Americans now use smart speakers, and more than half of them – 39 million – are using it to control their smart TV, video streamer, or other TV device at least weekly, according to research from Strategy Analytics.

This means that one in eight of all TV users are now using their voices to find shows, movies, or videos; change channels, change the volume; or simply turn the TV on or off.

The research has important implications for media providers, since video content is increasingly discovered and played through voice control rather than traditional approaches such as touchscreens, keyboards, and remote controls.

The survey found that the most common use case for voice-controlling the TV is turning it on or off, followed by changing the volume and searching for a show and playing it on the TV. Changing channels is also more likely to be done daily.

"People have predicted the death of the TV remote control for many years. It seems that viewers have finally found a practical alternative—their own voices," said David Watkins, director of smart speakers and screens at Strategy Analytics, in a statement. "Smart speakers are making video services and the TV itself even easier to use and content easier to find."

David Mercer, a Strategy Analytics vice president and principal analyst and the report's author, added, "With the growth in online video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, how people find video content is changing fast. The increasing popularity of smart speakers as TV control devices represents another phase in TV's transformation, and content owners need to plan for the inevitable disruption caused by these emerging user experiences."