Approximately 13% of Germans over 18 years of age – or 8.7 million people in Germany – are already using smart speakers with digital voice assistants such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, and HomePod. Some 27% can imagine controlling devices by voice in the future, while 4% intend to purchase a voice assistant in the next 12 months. These were the findings of trend study Consumer Technology 2018 , conducted by digital association Bitkom and consulting and auditing company Deloitte . The option of combining digital voice assistants with smart home devices is particularly popular – around 70% of users do this.

The study also found that the smartphone, as a universal device, continues to prompt key developments in a large number of sectors, including augmented reality: 21% of users have already tried out an augmented reality application with their smartphone. “The entire mobile ecosystem stands to benefit from augmented reality,” says Klaus Böhm, Director and Head of Media at Deloitte, who predicts that: “By 2023, around 20 million consumers in Germany will be using augmented reality products and services at least once a week.”