Here's the data you need on the Amazon Alexa
For a site dedicated to the latest gadgets and tech, it's safe to say that we're absolutely obsessed with smart devices. And, there's none more popular than Amazons' Alexa.
In this stats guide we look at just how popular the device is globally, who uses it the most (and for what), alongside loads of other really interesting data points. Let's take a look…
1. How many Amazon Echos are sold each year?
Amazon Echo, the Amazon smart speaker made to be used with Alexa, is selling increasingly well. While a mere 600,000 were sold in the first year it was available, in 2021, it sold a whopping 65 million. By 2025, that number is estimated to be 130 million. (Statista, 2022)
2. What’s the most common smart speaker in the United States?
While Amazon’s Echo isn’t the only smart speaker, it is by far the most common one used in America. In 2020, an estimated 46.5 million were in use in the US alone, making up over 50% of the domestic smart speaker market. (Statista, 2022)
3. Do people buy things with their smart speakers?
While it was expected that within a few years, everyone would be doing everything on their smart speakers, including online shopping, it’s yet to totally catch on. By the end of 2020, only around 20 million people had bought things with their smart speakers, a fair bit less than predicted. (Insider Intelligence, 2020)
4. What’s the main reason people don’t use smart assistants?
In 2020, the main reason that Americans cited when asked why they didn’t use smart assistants was that they simply weren’t interested, with 35% giving this response. This is less than the year before (2019) but a little less than the 38% who gave that response in 2020. (Voicebot.ai, 2020)
5. What’s the second main reason people don’t use smart assistants?
In 2020, the second most common reason that Americans cited when asked why they didn’t use smart assistants was that they were concerned about being recorded, at 33%. This figure is more than double the figure recorded in 2018, showing that privacy concerns are only increasing. (Voicebot.ai, 2020)
6. Does owning an Echo influence Amazon spending?
While this data may be slightly outdated by now, research done back in 2016 found that people who bought an Amazon Echo, the main speaker used with Amazon Alexa, ended up spending 10% more on Amazon that before they bought their Echo. (Business Insider, 2016)
7. Is price a barrier to smart speakers?
While smart speakers have gotten cheaper over recent years, price is still a factor that people quote when asked why they don’t have one. Indeed, 11% of those asked stated that they were too expensive in 2020 – more than the 9% who gave that response in 2018. (Voicebot.ai, 2020)
8. How much is Amazon Alexa worth?
The company behind Alexa, Amazon, is one of the largest tech companies in the world. The fourth tech company to achieve a market cap of $1 trillion, it managed to achieve a revenue of $386 billion in 2020. (Business of Apps, 2022)
9. Which voice assistant is having the biggest impact?
According to research done in 2019 and 2020, Amazon Alexa by far has the biggest impact rating, with a score of 110.2, followed by Google Assistant which has a score of 97.3. All other competitors, like Apple Siri and Samsung Bixby, are a long way behind. (Voicebot, 2020)
10. What do people use voice assistants like Alexa for?
While the uses of voice assistants and smart speakers is varied, the most common is to play a song from a streaming service, with 73.6% of users using this feature at least monthly. The second most common is asking a question, with 66.2% using this feature monthly. (Voicebot, 2020)
11. Where do people use Alexa most often?
While people use Alexa and smart speakers everywhere, most people use them in three places in the home. 45.5% of users have them in the bedroom, 43.2% have them in the living room, and 41.2% have them in the kitchen. (Voicebot, 2020)
12. Do people use Alexa at work?
While some people do use smart speakers at work, it’s a lot less common than domestic uses. 11.6% of users have them in their home office, and just 2.9% have them in their work office. (Voiceboy, 2020)
13. How much was spent by Amazon on Alexa in 2021?
Alexa is a complex service, and it’s not cheap to develop. In 2021 alone, Amazon estimated that their fixed costs would be a whopping $4.2 billion for that year. (Bloomberg, 2021)
14. How many people work on Alexa?
That significant sum we quoted above doesn’t just vanish into thin air – a lot of it went towards the 10,000 person team that’s currently working on Alexa, who are constantly trying to bring the service forward. (Bloomberg, 2021)
15. That sounds expensive – does Amazon make a profit from Alexa?
Amazon is currently making a loss on the service. That loss was projected to be $5 per device in 2021, with hopes of getting it to $2 profit per device by 2028. Whether they meet that goal remains to be seen. (Bloomberg, 2021)
16. Was Amazon Alexa the first voice assistant?
While Alexa is one of the most popular voice assistants, it wasn’t the first. Siri, Apple’s virtual personal assistant, was the first to be introduced to the public. It was bought from SRI in 2010, and unveiled as a feature of the iPhone 4S in 2011. (SRI, 2022)
17. What’s more accurate, google Home or Amazon Alexa?
Part of the reason behind why Google Home may be seeing such success is that it that it’s been found to be more accurate than Amazon Alexa, when it comes to responding to verbal prompts. I scores highest in 4 of 5 categories, including commerce, local questions, navigation, and general information. (Police Advice, 2022)
18. What’s the link between smart speakers and information?
A lot of people use their smart speakers to look up facts, with 35% of adults in America stating that assistants like Alexa were their main source of general information and news in 2021. (Writers Block Live, 2022)
19. What percentage of American households have Alexa?
In 2021, a massive 25% of US households were estimated to have at least a single Alexa compatible device. That figure rose to 27% in households that used Amazon Prime. (Bloomberg, 2021)
20. What’s more popular in Spain – Amazon Alexa or Google Home?
While Amazon still leads in the US, what about Spain? It looks like Google Home narrowly leads that race at the moment, enjoying the loyalty of 35% of smart voice assistant users, compared to Amazon Alexa’s 33.6%. (Safe At Last, 2022)
21. Do users get along with Amazon Alexa?
While a lot of people clearly have access to Amazon Alexa and Amazon Echo, how many of them actually enjoy the service? In the US, customer satisfaction stands at 53%. Take that figure as you will – it may be over half, but in some industries, it would also be considered quite low. (Safe At Last, 2022)
22. How fast will Alexa grow?
While there was a boom over the period of lockdowns, as people experimented with new household technologies, Amazon themselves suspect their rapid growth phase may be over, with one estimate finding that usage would expand by just 1.2% each year over the coming years. (Bloomberg, 2021)
23. What do millennials use Alexa for?
Along with the other normal features like song requests and timers, 18% of millennials also use Amazon Alexa for voice assisted shopping. As we’ve seen, that’s quite a lot more than other demographics. (Safe At Last, 2022)
24. Is the Amazon Alexa app popular in the UK?
To use Amazon Echo, you also need to get the Alexa app on your phone. In February 2020 alone, there were over 91,000 iPhone downloads of the Alexa app in the UK, an absolutely jaw dropping number that would place annual downloads at over a million. (Safe At Last, 2022)
25. How many people know about Alexa in the US?
While not everyone uses the service, a massive 63% of US citizens at least know about Amazon Alexa and Amazon Echo. That’s a pretty shockingly large number, and shows how effective Amazon has been at getting the word out. (Safe At Last, 2022)
26. What age groups use Alexa most?
While you might think that Alexa would be used predominantly by younger generations, it turns out that the reverse is true. The highest usage group was those over 65 years old, at 41%, with 39% of 34-44 year olds using the service. (Safe At Last, 2022)
27. Which age groups use Alexa the least?
Perhaps surprisingly, the age group that uses Alexa least is 18-24 year olds, at just 19%. Just behind are 25-34 year olds at 29%, followed by 45-54 year olds at 34%. (Safe At Last, 2022)
28. When was Amazon Alexa invented?
Alexa was originally launched in 2014, alongside the Amazon Echo smart speaker. Obviously a lot has changed since then, with AI and technological innovation, but the name and basic concept remain the same. (Tech Republic, 2020)
29. How many skills does Alexa have?
Since being launched back in 2014, as of 2022, Alexa has gained a whopping 100,000 skills. While this is hard to even imagine, the sheer variety of tasks that Alexa can carry out is tremendous, from turning on your lights to telling you what the weather is like. (Safe At Last, 2022)
30. What’s the link between Alexa and Echo in the UK?
Alexa is also very popular in the uk, and around 79% of digital shoppers in the UK had Amazon Echo back in 2019, with that number likely having increased over the past few years. (Safe At Last, 2022)
31. Is there a link between marriage and Amazon Alexa?
No, no one has actually gotten to marry Alexa. However, and this may or may not come as a bit of a surprise – over 250,000 marriage proposals have been made to Alexa! Whether someone will actually tie the knot in the future remains to be seen. (Safe At Last, 2022)
32. What languages does Alexa support?
While Alexa can speak French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English, the international version only supports three different languages – German, Spanish, and English. This has the potential to significantly limit global growth over the coming years. (Safe At Last, 2022)
33. Are skills evenly distributed by country?
While Alexa has over 100,000 skills, not every country has access to all of those. The US has access to the most, at 77,000, while the UK has 37,000 and India has 34,000. Australia and Canada have around 25,000. (Police Advice, 2022)
34. What global market share does Alexa have this year (2022)?
Alexa dominance may be waning, with predictions placing Alexa’s global market share at just 34%. Racing ahead to the front of the pack is Google, which is expected to have 43% by the end of the year. This may be because Google can use its massive search engine, while Alexa is heavily reliant on Wikipedia as a resource. (Police Advice, 2022)
35. Do men or women use Alexa more?
In 2018, it was found that men use their Alexa and Google Home devices more than women. 64% of men used their smart speaker devices multiple times each day, while only 53% of women with devices used them multiple times per day. (Police Advice, 2022)
36. What impact does income play on Alexa usage?
People with a higher income are far more likely to have a smart speaker at home. While just 15% of households with an income below $30,000 per year use one, that rises to 34% when you look at households with an annual income of $75,000 and above. (Police Advice, 2022)
37. Can Alexa control smart home features?
With an increasing number of homes integrating smart features from locks and lights to heating systems, smart home occupiers will be happy to know that most popular smart home products such as Nest and Philips hue lights can all be controlled via Alexa. (Police Advice, 2022)
Conclusion
For me, the most interesting part of all of this is how Amazon don't actually make any more from the Alexa device. And, even though having a loss-making product is quite common for some of the huge tech companies, it's still quite the fact to wrap your head around when you think about how many have been sold this year alone!
