Amazon rolls out Alexa, Echo in Canada (AMZN)
BI Intelligence
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Amazon has brought its Echo line of smart speakers and the Alexa voice assistant to Canada, reports Engadget.
The e-commerce giant will also make its Prime Music service available to consumers in the country, and it’s working with major Canadian media companies to ensure that users have locally relevant skills available at launch.
This Canadian introduction comes a week after Amazon announced that the devices and the Alexa assistant were launching in Japan, indicating that the company is continuing to push for expansion of its Echo smart speakers.
There are several reasons Canada is a natural market for Amazon to expand its smart speaker products into:
It’s a predominantly English-speaking country, which means that Alexa should be able to work as consumers use it without much or any real modification. The company’s developers didn’t need to adapt the assistant’s natural language processing extensively to understand particular dialects and accents either, as it needed to when it expanded Alexa to India.
And it’s a top e-commerce player in Canada. Amazon.ca, the local site, is the seventh-most visited website in Canada and the most trafficked e-commerce platform. The potential user base is there and already using Amazon’s services, so Amazon is looking to offer those consumers another way to buy goods online.
But Alexa won’t be available in French yet. French is one of the two official languages in Canada; about a third of the population speaks French, and about 22% call it their primary language. This will limit adoption of Alexa and the Echo smart speakers in the primarily French-speaking Quebec province and other portions of Eastern Canada. This also means that Amazon won’t be able to easily release the Echo in France, Belgium, and other French-speaking countries.
The spread of Alexa and the Echo speakers has been relatively slow. Amazon first introduced the Echo to the US market in 2014, and while the device has sold well, three years later the smart speaker is available in just six countries and three languages.
Companies around the world, meanwhile, have introduced smart speakers of their own that speak local languages, like Xioami’s Mi AI, Kakao’s Mini, and LINE’s Clova Wave. For Amazon to be able to spread its smart speakers globally, it will need to work to localize Alexa and allow consumers to speak to the assistant in their local languages. The company will also need to act before other companies establish insurmountable leads in their local markets.
BI Intelligence, has put together a Smart Speaker report that analyzes the market potential of the Echo Look, Echo Show, and HomePod. Using exclusive survey data, this report evaluates each device's potential for adoption based on four criteria: awareness, excitement, usefulness, and purchase intent. Finally, the report draws some inferences from our data about the direction the smart speaker market could take from here.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Amazon's new Echo Show is the big winner — it has mass-market appeal and looks like it will take off. The combination of usefulness and excitement will drive consumers to buy the Echo Show. The Echo Look, though, seems like it will struggle to attract that same level of interest.
Apple’s HomePod looks likely to find a place in the smart speaker market but won’t dominate its space like the iPhone or iPad did.
The smart speaker market will evolve rapidly in the next few years, with more devices featuring screens, a variety of more focused products emerging, and eventually, the voice assistant moving beyond the smart speaker.
In full, the report:
Showcases exclusive survey data on initial consumer reactions to the Echo Look, Echo Show, and HomePod.
Highlights the aims and strategies of major players in the smart speaker market.
Provides analysis on the direction this nascent market will take and the opportunity for companies considering a move into the space.
To get the full report, subscribe to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now
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