The voice component for Samsung’s Bixby virtual assistant initially launched only in Korea, and then in July, it was made available to US consumers. Samsung is now reporting that Bixby Voice is available in more than 200 different countries, but even while that may be true, Bixby Voice still has a long ways to go before it catches up with the Google Assistant.
In a press release that Samsung recently published, the company says:
Bixby’s voice capabilities have expanded to more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, allowing millions of consumers to experience a smarter way to interact with their phones.
Along with South Korea and the United States, Samsung also says that Bixby Voice is available in areas like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and South Africa.
This expansion sounds impressive at first, but there’s still a huge underlying problem — Bixby Voice is only available in Korean and English for its supported languages. The feature might be available in a lot of new countries, but if you don’t speak either of these two languages, you’re out of luck.
Comparatively, the Google Assistant currently supports English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish, and will soon have additional support for Italian and Korean. Furthermore, while Bixby Voice is available in 200 different countries, Google reported back in July that the Google Assistant was now accessible on more than 100 million devices.
Despite these clear setbacks compared to Google Assistant, Samsung still appears to be confident in its current rollout for Bixby Voice. The company’s Executive Vice President and Head of R&D for Software and Services, Injong Rhee, says:
Now millions of customers worldwide have access to a new and intelligent way of interacting with their phone. The expansion of Bixby’s voice capabilities is an initial step in the continued rollout of Bixby functionality.
Samsung also states that it has plans to expand Bixby Voice to more countries and languages, but there’s unfortunately no ETA as to when this will take place. The availability in 200 countries is a solid number at the moment, but Samsung’s biggest challenge now is allowing more people in these countries to actually use this service that’s available to them.
More Bixby Stories:
- Samsung reported to launch Bixby-powered AirPods competitor alongside Galaxy Note 8
- What apps do you want to gain Bixby support? [Poll]
- Samsung reportedly drops plans for a Bixby speaker, at least for now
- Here are the Android apps Bixby can interact with at launch
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments