Alexa turns 3 in India: Usage increased by 67% in 2020

Amazon’s Alexa has turned three in India. To celebrate the third anniversary, Amazon is offering deals and discounts on its Echo devices. The sale begins midnight on February 15. The company has also released insights on the usage of Alexa in India in 2020.

According to Amazon, Indian users interacted with millions of times each week in English, Hindi and Hinglish. They interacted with Alexa 67% more in 2020 as compared to 2019. The popular “Alexa, I love you” voice requests increased to 19,000 times a day, up by 1200% from 2019.

The company said Alexa users spanned the corners of the country ranging from metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore to smaller cities like Spiti, Bundi, and Gadchiroli. Customers from over 85% pin codes purchased Echo smart speakers in 2020. Alexa users asked the digital assistant to control a smart home gadget 8.6 lakh times every day in 2020.

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According to Amazon, Shree Hanuman Chalisa, Shaitan Ka Saala, and Baby Shark were amongst the top five most requested songs. In 2020, Alexa added the support for Amazon Shopping app. The assistant responded to more than 5.8 lakh requests each day to search for products, deals, and music.

“There was a significant increase in Alexa interactions in last year, especially for guided meditation, workout music, games and learning skills, and content such as mythology, devotional music, stories and Shayari,” the company said in its release.

"Be it the Echo device in the living room, 100+ Alexa built-in devices or your favourite smartphone, it is heart-warming to see users across the length and breadth of the country across age groups find value and adopt Alexa in their daily lives”, said Puneesh Kumar, Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India. “For us its always Day 1 as we learn from our customers and continue to add new features, improving Alexa’s understanding on topics that matter to users locally.”

Apart from Alexa, Amazon has reported a surge in usage of Fire TV in 2020. According to the company, Fire TV users in India doubled consumption of entertainment content during their stay at home in 2020 with movies, cricket, online gaming and music gaining traction. You can read the full report on Fire TV’s usage in India in 2020 here.