Consumers in Germany have recently been able to purchase Apple's smart speaker, the HomePod, from local providers. The device, introduced last year at the Worldwide Developers Conference, was previously only available in Australia, Great Britain and the USA. Technically, the HomePod may be on par with the competition, but is that enough to catch up with Amazon and Google? According to current figures, Echo and Google Home currently share around 70 percent of global sales, Strategy Analytics With a market share of six percent, Apple is in fourth place behind Alibaba.