Apple HomePod is coming to China in early 2019 but there's nothing for India yet

While we wait for the **HomePod** to come to India, Apple has stated that the Siri-powered smart speaker will be coming to China early next year. Customers in China cannot place an order for their HomePod yet, but a new product page and store listing on Apple’s website has gone live. Apple doesn’t offer a specific shipping date, specifying only a release during “early 2019.” The price for the speaker has been set at CNY 2,799 which translates to approximately Rs 28,800 in India. [caption id=“attachment_4886011” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Apple HomePod[/caption] After launching in the US, UK, and Australia back in February 2018, Apple has now slowly begun making the HomePod available in Asia. Spain and Mexico were the other two countries where Apple made the HomePod available in late October. Apple is working to keep its Siri voice assistant relevant in the face of competition from Amazon’s Alexa and Alphabet’s Google Assistant, both of which are featured on smart speakers from those companies. Apple is also counting on HomePod to boost subscriptions to Apple Music and block the rise of rival Spotify. The smart speakers from Google and Amazon let users give voice commands to play Spotify but Apple Music does not work on the rival devices. Does this mean that the Homepod may be available in India soon? Well, China is the first Asian country to get it but that doesn’t mean anything for India yet.