Amazon Echo may be number one, but Google Home is quickly catching up

Amazon Echo is certainly dominating the market, but that's because there hasn't been much competition until now.

Amazon's line of assistant-enabled Echo devices remain as the punchline of every connected home joke, which is why it's no surprise it's the number one line of assistant-enabled connected speaker in U.S. households. According to research firm eMarketer, the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot devices now claim roughy 70% of the marketshare for this particular category of devices.

Google Home ranks in at number two, but it's trailing far behind at nearly 24% marketshare. Still, that's not bad for a device that's only been on the market for about 6 months. The remaining portion of the marketshare goes to smaller players, including Lenovo, LG, Harmon Kardon, and Mattel.

eMarketer said that it expects the broader category of virtual assistants to grow by 23% this year, though it's worth noting that the statistics featured here focused on speakers with a built-in digital assistant and do not include usage data from Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana.

Reuters reports that Google Home's share is also expected to grow. Tests by analysts have shown that the technology running Google's connected devices is seen as a match or "superior to competitors". Additionally, a survey done by RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney found Google's brand awareness in the U.S. to be about 80% of Alexa's, despite it being a relatively nascent release.