Amazon’s Alexa is Doing Pretty Well in the Battle over Voice Recognition

The investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that 11 million Amazon Echo devices had been sold by the end of November 2016 [1]. In addition, data from the research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners shows that 8.2 million US shoppers own an Echo [7]. The Guardian estimates that more than 8% of US households have an Echo device. These numbers are quite significant and seem to imply that standalone voice control devices will have a bright future. Another piece of good news for Echo-like devices is that Gartner has predicted that by 2018, 30% of our interactions with technology will be through conversations with smart machines [2].

Thanks to Amazon having opened Alexa (i.e., the intelligent personal assistant included in Echo) for third-party devices and apps, Alexa is also being used by devices from other companies, such as Huawei’s Mate 9 smartphone, Ford’s F-150 car, and LG’s InstaView smart refrigerator, like I wrote in an earlier post [3]. And according to Wikipedia, there seem to be also a long list of other devices that integrate Alexa [4]. Similar to Amazon, also Microsoft has opened its virtual assistant (Cortana) to third-party devices and apps [5].

The analyst firm Slice Intellligence lists some other signs of Echo approaching a breakout phase in its success [6]:

• 50% of revenue related to Echo comes from women
• Generation X and Baby Boomer consumers are driving a significant amount of Echo purchases
• First-time Echo buyers are no longer necessarily heavy online shoppers

Amazon has promoted the Echo aggressively and has apparently been quite successful in doing so – according to data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, 82% of Amazon shoppers in the US are aware of Echo.

Google’s response to Alexa is its Google Home voice-only device. Alexa’s growing popularity is most likely a concern for Google since the increasing use of voice-based searches would mean less searches via Goole and thus less ad revenue for the search giant.

Sources

[1] Amazon and Google fight crucial battle over voice recognition, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/22/home-battleground-amazon-google-voice-technology

[2] Market Trends: Voice as a UI on Consumer Devices — What Do Users Want? https://www.gartner.com/doc/3021226/market-trends-voice-ui-consumer

[3] The Buzz around Virtual Assistants, http://edge-of-cloud.blogspot.fi/2017/01/the-buzz-around-virtual-assistants.html

[4] Amazon Alexa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Alexa

[5] Microsoft to open Cortana virtual assistant to third-party devices and apps, https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/13/microsoft-to-open-cortana-virtual-assistant-to-third-party-devices-and-apps/?ncid=rss

[6] The Amazon Echo is having its mainstream moment, https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/the-amazon-echo-is-having-its-mainstream-moment/?ncid=rss

[7] Amazon’s US Echo sales top 8 million, https://www.internetretailer.com/2017/01/23/amazons-us-echo-sales-top-8-million