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Apple takes on Amazon with new HomePod smart speaker

蘋果推出HomePod迎戰亞馬遜

· 每日跟讀單元 Daily English

On June 6 Apple Inc officially unveiled HomePod, a smart speaker to challenge the likes of Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home. With the Homepod, Apple is not just looking to get a slice of the lucrative smart speaker market pie, currently dominated by Amazon. The company is also pinning its hopes on the HomePod becoming the device which helps Apple to achieve its ambitious aim to double revenue from its services business by 2021.

蘋果公司六月六日正式推出迎戰亞馬遜Echo與谷歌Home的智慧揚聲器HomePod,不但要瓜分這個當前由亞馬遜獨大,有利可圖的市場,更是蘋果邁向二○二一年服務事業營收倍增的一大利器。

The HomePod, which comes with Apple’s digital assistant Siri built-in, is expected to go on sale in the US, UK and Australia from December for US$349 (approx. NTS$10,564) — nearly twice the price of devices sold by its market competitors.

內建Siri擔任數位助理的HomePod擬訂價三百四十九美元(約新台幣一萬零五百六十四元),比市場競爭者的價格高約一倍,將於十二月起開始於美國、澳洲與英國出貨。

According to reporting by Bloomberg, the HomePod is the first all-new hardware product to be released by Apple since the Apple Watch in 2015 and comes at an important time for the US tech giant, which is seeking out new revenue streams having become heavily reliant on the iPhone in recent years.

彭博報導,HomePod是蘋果二○一五年推出智慧型手錶Apple Watch後,第一款全新硬體產品,且推出時機對蘋果來說相當重要,這家營收目前高度仰賴iPhone表現的美國科技巨擘,亟需開闢新財源。

The lucrative market for Internet-connected speakers and other smart home technology may just be large enough to help Apple achieve its aim of diversifying its business lines. According to market consultancy firm Strategy Analytics, shipments of smart speakers have jumped nearly 600 percent year-on-year, increasing by 4.2 million units in the fourth quarter of last year, with Amazon and Google taking 88 and 10 percent of market share, respectively.

連接網路的揚聲器與其他智慧型居家科技市場,規模可能足以協助蘋果業績擴張。根據市場顧問機構Strategy Analytics,第四季智慧居家揚聲器出貨年增高達四百二十萬台,增幅將近百分之六百,其中亞馬遜占百分之八十八,谷歌占百分之十。

Source article: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2017/06/20/2003672879