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HomePod Why HomePod Release only in 3 Countries ?

augustya

augustya

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Feb 17, 2012
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Well, I know Apple has been following this trend for last so many years for the release of all its devices, So I am quite aware of the trend but this time with the HomePod Apple decided to release the HomePod only in the UK, USA & Australia is that only because it is an indication of the most developed and progressive countries in the world ? But then I would imagine Apple would have released it in the G7 countries of the world those are developed and Progressed aswell !! Just a little Off-topic but just curious, or is it because right now Siri on the HomePod can only take commands in English and these three countries are the most predominantly English Speaking Countries ?
 
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I would not say it is an indication of the most developed and progressive countries...

It could be any number of reasons. They’re all English speaking countries that don’t require releasing a product in another language (ex: Canada requires both English and French). They wouldn’t have to develop instructions and packaging in another language. It could also be that they didn’t have enough manufactured for a worldwide launch and needed to prioritize. Perhaps these 3 have more mature smart speaker markets and they’re at higher risk of losing marketshare to Amazon and Google if they do not get the product on shelves quicker.

Siri wasn’t available in plenty of countries for a long time after it was available in the US. You’d think we would be past that stage at this point since this is mostly just the same old Siri on a new platform, but perhaps there is more to it than we can tell from the outside.
 
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They probably learned from the iPhone X launch, where they launched in basically every country at once and stretched themselves way to thin. This created a massive issue, as people who ordered 3 minutes after pre-order were already pushed back a couple weeks. They got a lot of flack for this and most likely did not want a repeat performance.

Just my guess, obviously.

:apple:
 
The way I look at it, Apple may have opted to start selling HomePod only where the full features were available. It provides a convenient excuse for limited availability, while narrowing the range of first-wave users so that the user feedback becomes manageable. Let's look at the following:

iOS feature availability list
https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/

With the exception of Restaurant Reservation, the countries that can provide all the features are Australia, UK, and US. Conveniently enough, "News" feature is supported in those three countries only right now, and all are English-speaking countries.

Canada comes close second, but rather than adding French support, Apple apparently decided to go English-only for now and use that as an excuse to skip Canada from the first-wave availability.
 
wesley96 said:
Canada comes close second, but rather than adding French support, Apple apparently decided to go English-only for now and use that as an excuse to skip Canada from the first-wave availability.
Click to expand...

New Zealand ?
 
These are 3 representative countries in each region ie. Americas (also home to Apple), Asia Pacific and Euroland, and all English speaking. Apart from available stock, staff and support training would also take up considerable resources, so it’s understandable why these 3 were chosen for launch. For Australian release, a significant volume of the sale would filter out to China and other S/E Asian countries through private ‘daigou’ businesses.
 
Maybe because of English was a Problem, But Apple has always released its Products in Germany, France and Canada in its first wave of launch with all other previous products. Germany and France are developed countries ?
 
Though he made didn’t mention HomePod or Apple by name, Fubon Securities analyst Arthur Liao told Japanese outlet Nikkei that Inventec will only ship some 500,000 HomePods this year, pegging the device’s contribution to the company’s revenue at less than one percent.

The situation should improve in 2018, when Inventec is expected to split HomePod orders with its rival Foxconn. Limited supply isn’t a major departure from past Apple launches, including Inventec-built AirPods that only recently started seeing shorter shipping times.

As a matter of fact, Apple itself said that its $349 Siri-driven speaker would see a staggered rollout, hitting the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in December before gradually rolling out to major international markets in 2018.
Click to expand...

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/08/14/apple-estimated-to-build-only-500000-homepods-in-december/ (August 2017)
 
1. Siri is even worse in other languages and can do less.'
2. Apple Music is limited or unavailable in many other countries.

Since the HomePod right now is primarily a music speaker and a lesser smart speaker it makes sense for Apple to rollout slowly to give them time to continue working out rights issues for music (Apple Music) and the smarts of Siri (to be able to effectively compete with Amazon Alexa etc.)

I'm sure it will be in a lot more countries before the end of the year.
 
augustya said:
Maybe because of English was a Problem, But Apple has always released its Products in Germany, France and Canada in its first wave of launch with all other previous products. Germany and France are developed countries ?
Click to expand...

It's not always day and date with the USA release. The first generation iPhone was launched in June of 2007 in the USA, it didn't become available to the UK, France, Germany and so on until November of that year.
The first generation iPad, while not as pronounced a gap, was the same. It was available in April of 2010 in the USA, before being released in other regions in May 2010.

The reason I'm using those two examples, is that like the HomePod they were the first generation of their respective categories. There's no doubt more if you look back through their product release history, even just to the iPod days when Apple became more "mainstream".

At the end of the day, as others have said, it likely boils down to the volume of product available and perhaps limiting it to predominantly English speaking countries. Maybe to give them more time to work on the internationalisation of the product, who knows, outside of Apple it's anybody's guess.
 
canyonblue737 said:
1. Siri is even worse in other languages and can do less.'
2. Apple Music is limited or unavailable in many other countries.

Since the HomePod right now is primarily a music speaker and a lesser smart speaker it makes sense for Apple to rollout slowly to give them time to continue working out rights issues for music (Apple Music) and the smarts of Siri (to be able to effectively compete with Amazon Alexa etc.)

I'm sure it will be in a lot more countries before the end of the year.
Click to expand...
Apple Music itself is currently available in 115 countries. Yes, there are variations on the availability of certain artists due to regional licensing rights issue (certain K-Pop labels have refused to join in for the Apple Music in Korea... ugh). But given the wide availability of the service itself I don't see how it would have played a role in having HomePod launching in just three countries. Are Canada's or New Zealand's Apple Music missing huge chunks of music library?
 
wesley96 said:
Apple Music itself is currently available in 115 countries. Yes, there are variations on the availability of certain artists due to regional licensing rights issue (certain K-Pop labels have refused to join in for the Apple Music in Korea... ugh). But given the wide availability of the service itself I don't see how it would have played a role in having HomePod launching in just three countries. Are Canada's or New Zealand's Apple Music missing huge chunks of music library?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don’t see Apple Music as being an issue for the HomePod launch.
I really do think the biggest factor would be available stock. Once manufacturing has really ramped up, within the next couple of months, I think we’ll see more markets added promptly.
 
Well, when I asked it to translate something for me shortly after I got it, it prattled on saying it could do several European languages - like Spanish, Italian, and German. Last week Mandarin Chinese suddenly showed up as an option. I'm pretty sure that wasn't there the first week or two it was out. I was trying for Japanese, nothing yet.

I would hazard a guess that the languages it mentions may have something to do with future release dates.
 
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