Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Google's KaiOS & Language Support to Aid Assistant Momentum

Read MoreHide Full Article

Alphabet’s (GOOGL - Free Report) division Google is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to making progress in the booming virtual assistant market.

The search giant is undertaking efforts to expand addressable market size by introducing its virtual assistant — Google Assistant — on low end phones based on KaiOS operating system in emerging markets like India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.

We believe that Google is likely to gain traction among KaiOS device users and strengthen its market position in the virtual assistant space with its latest move.

Focus on Emerging Markets

Google’s recent initiative bodes well for its growing inclination toward introducing technical revolution in the countries mentioned above.

The company aims at bridging the technical gap among smart phone users in these countries by integrating virtual assistant with KaiOS devices.

Users that are not so tech-savvy will be able to operate their phones with the help of simple voice commands.

Further, to provide hassle-free typing to the users of KaiOS phones, the company is rolling out a voice typing feature that will use voice commands.

We note that these endeavors by Google along with the popularity of low-end phones in these countries are expected to strengthen the user base of Google Assistant.

Further, KaiOS support is likely to provide a competitive edge to Google against the likes of Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) , Apple (AAPL - Free Report) and Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) that are bolstering their presence in the virtual assistant space.

However, Alexa, Siri and Cortana, the respective virtual assistants of these companies do not support KaiOS yet.

Driving Language Initiative

Apart from the KaiOS support, Google has also unveiled bilingual feature for the languages like Hindi, Korean, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Dutch. Notably, this feature enables quick switch between any two languages.

Further, to gain momentum among Indians, the company has equipped Assistant with eight different languages — Bengali, Marathi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada and Malayalam.

Additionally, the company introduced Actions for its Google Assistant. The feature will facilitate developers to build these actions in 19 different languages on Android Go and KaiOS.

Courtesy of the latest features and updates, Google is well poised to benefit from the potential global virtual assistant market. Per a report from Zion Market Research, the market is expected to reach $19.6 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 35.4% between 2019 and 2025.

Currently, Alphabet carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential

The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They’re also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.

Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +98%, +119% and +164% in as little as 1 month. The stocks in this report could perform even better.

See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>>

Published in