Monday (February 8) marks the third anniversary of Amazon's Alexa debut with Echo smart speakers making their debut in India. Within a short span, it has managed to capture more than 90-percent market share in the country.
The company has revealed some interesting facts on Alexa's growing popularity among consumers not just in the metros (Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, etc...), but also in tier-2 cities and lesser-known small towns such as Spiti, Bundi, and Gadchiroli. Customers from over 85% pin codes purchased Echo smart speakers in 2020.
Playing songs on Amazon Echo smart speakers is one of the most asked requests to Alexa. Shree Hanuman Chalisa, Shaitan Ka Saala, and Baby Shark are amongst the top five most requested songs.
Besides the music, people used Alexa to manage to-do lists, set alarms, tell kids’ stories, control smart lights, and appliances, to play their Kindle and Audible audiobooks in addition to asking for the weather, cricket scores, and other real-time information.
With most professionals working from home for the most part of 2020, there was a significant increase in Alexa interactions, especially for guided meditation, workout music, games and learning skills, and content such as mythology, devotional music, stories, and Shayari.
"In 2020, Alexa debuted on the Amazon Shopping App (Android only) and responded to over 5.8 Lakh requests every day to search for products, best deals, and music. Customers were also delighted with new Alexa features which made bill payments across categories such as electricity, water, post-paid mobile, cooking gas, broadband, DTH recharges and even book a gas cylinder- faster by just asking Alexa!," Amazon noted.
Amazon also shared one interesting statistic as well. It registered customers saying “Alexa, I love you” close to 19,000 times a day, up 1200% compared to 2019. There is no mention in what context the customers said it, but probably people were just happy with the service delivered by Alexa.
My mother does that most of the time, just being thankful for the quick action carried out by Alexa.
Some customers went overboard. Amazon said Alexa registered more than 6000 'Will you marry me' requests per day.
The company says more skills and features will be released to the Alexa. Some of these include Macmillan skill to help learn English, news in 12 regional languages, access to the world's largest collection of Shayari in Urdu via the Rekhta skill, as well as hundreds of hours of audio entertainment narrated by celebrities and renowned storytellers from Audible Suno.
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