It seems to be just a few short days or weeks ago that the United States was warning any country which would pay heed that it was best to avoid using equipment from Chinese telecommunications vendors because they would follow orders given by the Beijing government.

China dominated the global smart speaker market in the first quarter of 2019, with nearly 51% or 10.6 million units being shipped, following by the US which accounted for 24% of shipments of 5.0 million units, down from 44% in the final quarter of 2018, the analyst firm Canalys says.

The US Commerce Department has eased some of the restrictions it imposed on Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies last week, allowing the company to maintain and update existing networks and handsets.