Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant may have reached critical mass during the 2017 holiday shopping season, judging from a new report from the e-commerce giant.
In its first post-holiday recap this morning, Amazon says it sold “tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices” worldwide during the holiday season. The company doesn’t disclose specific numbers, but the result appears to be up significantly from last year, when Amazon said it sold mere “millions” of Alexa-enabled devices.
That’s one of the headlines from what appears to be another blockbuster holiday season for the Seattle-based e-commerce giant. In one unspecified week during the holidays, more than 4 million people signed up for Amazon Prime either through free trials or fully paid memberships, according to the company.
Actual financial results from the holiday won’t be released until the company issues its fourth-quarter earnings next month, but the announcement makes it clear that Amazon did especially well selling its own devices. The company said Echo Dot and the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice remote were the top-selling Amazon devices and “the best-selling products from any manufacturer in any category across all of Amazon.”
Echo Spot, Echo Dot and Echo Buttons all sold out for the holiday season, the company said.
Amazon has jumped out to an early lead over Google Assistant, Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana and others in the home market for voice-based assistants and smart speakers. Amazon refreshed its first-party lineup of Alexa-enabled Echo devices and is also benefitting from more third-party device makers incorporating Alexa into their products.
