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

Amazon's Alexa has been in India for three years. To celebrate the third anniversary, Amazon is offering deals and discounts on its Echo devices. The sale begins at midnight on February 15. The company has also released information on the use of Alexa in India in 2020.

As per Amazon, Indian users interacted millions of times a week in English, Hindi and Hinglish. They interacted with Alexa 67% more in 2020 compared to 2019. Popular voice requests "Alexa, I love you" increased to 19,000 times a day, 1,200% more than 2019.

The company said that Alexa users were spread across the country's corners, from metropolitan areas like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore to smaller cities like Spiti, Bundi and Gadchiroli. Customers with over 85% pin codes bought Echo smart speakers in 2020. Alexa users asked the digital assistant to control a smart home device 8.6 billion times every day in 2020.

According to Amazon, Shree Hanuman Chalisa, Shaitan Ka Saala, and Baby Shark were among the top five most requested songs. In 2020, Alexa added support for the Amazon Shopping app. The assistant responded to more than 5.8 billion requests per 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 of topics that matter to users locally."

In addition to Alexa, Amazon has reported an increase in Fire TV usage in 2020. According to the company, Fire TV users in India doubled their entertainment content while staying at home in 2020 with movies, cricket, games online and music gaining ground.