Images of the new Nest Audio smart speaker shown on a laptop during the online Google Launch Night event held on Wednesday. Bloomberg
Images of the new Nest Audio smart speaker shown on a laptop during the online Google Launch Night event held on Wednesday. Bloomberg
Images of the new Nest Audio smart speaker shown on a laptop during the online Google Launch Night event held on Wednesday. Bloomberg
Images of the new Nest Audio smart speaker shown on a laptop during the online Google Launch Night event held on Wednesday. Bloomberg

Technology

Google launches $99 Nest speaker and new TV device

Google has a 31% share of the smart speaker market, compared to Amazon's 53%

Bloomberg

September 30, 2020

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Alphabet’s Google launched a $99 Nest Audio speaker and a new Chromecast TV device, seeking to hold off Amazon and other competitors from grabbing more consumers in the smart home market.

The Nest Audio replaced the mid-tier Google Home speaker and uses a new fabric-heavy design similar to recent updates to Google’s lower-end home speakers. The new device has technology from the higher-end Google Home Max that lets the speaker adapt its sound by understanding its location in the environment.

Google has been locked in back-and-forth lawsuits with Sonos  regarding audio technology patents, with Sonos suing the California-based search giant as recently as Tuesday regarding five patents.

The patents at the heart of the lawsuit involve a speaker’s ability to adjust its output based on its location, streaming music from the cloud and interacting with other speakers, all features the new Nest model includes.

Other new features of the Nest speaker include improved bass and clearer sound, Google said on Wednesday during a brief virtual product launch.

Google has about 31% of the smart speaker market, compared with 53% for Amazon and less than 3% for Apple, according to data from Voicebot Research.

The new speaker comes in multiple colors, similar to other smart speakers like Apple’s HomePod. The iPhone maker is working on a smaller and cheaper speaker, while Amazon launched several redesigned Echo speakers earlier this month.

Google announced the Nest Audio along with its new TV device during the product event.

The new TV device, the $49.99 Chromecast with Google TV, has a new oval, versus circular look, includes a Google-branded remote control with voice command, Netflix and YouTube buttons, an updated TV operating system called Google TV, and, like previous models, plugs into a television via an HDMI port.

Google TV is a re-branded version of Android TV with a redesigned user interface and can offer viewing recommendations from across services like YouTube. Google said the operating system will come to several other Android TV devices as well.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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