VK plans to complete production of the “Capsule” smart speakers with the “Marusya” voice assistant, writes Kommersant citing sources from the IT sector and a large equipment sales network.
Author:
https://rb.ru/author/mihail-zelenin/
Subscribe to RB.RU on Telegram
The legal entity VK Smart Devices LLC, responsible for publishing the column, according to SPARK, is in the process of merging with another legal entity as of October 24, VK Store LLC. Sources told the newspaper that the reorganization is being carried out with the aim of “optimizing corporate governance.”
According to sources of the publication in large IT companies, the decision to reduce the assembly of speakers is due to the low sales figures of devices, both in quantitative and monetary terms, and the VK holding itself plans to completely abandon the development of its own line of equipment.
“The information is not true. VK does not plan to close the Capsule speaker project. All teams involved in the project are working as usual. In October, the company presented a new flagship model, VK Capsule Pro. At the moment users can pre-order and it will appear in stores before the end of November,” the VK press service informed RB.RU.
As interlocutors from the technology and electronics retail sector told Kommersant, Capsules’ market share in the three quarters of 2024 increased to 7.5%, but the average price and share of total revenue in the smart speakers market fell significantly.
Director of the Department of New Technologies at J’son & Partners Consulting, Dmitry Kolesov, noted that the possible closure of Capsule production fits into the logic of the development of the VK ecosystem, which decided to abandon the direction of voice assistants.
At the end of October this year, the corporation announced the start of pre-orders for an advanced version of the speaker, called “Capsule Pro”. The 65W device was equipped with a touch screen, a new speaker system and equipment to control smart home devices.
Author:
Mikhail Zelenin
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
