Amazon to up technology game in India; to introduce Alexa voice service and Echo speakers

Amazon is planning to introduce its Alexa Voice Service (AVS) along with its Echo speakers in India towards the end of this year in a bid to expand its influence in the technologically advanced house systems. The speakers will initially be launched with an English interface and be updated later to respond to commands in regional Indian languages including Marathi, Tamil and Hindi. The multilingual facility is under development at the company’s Chennai center.

Although it is advanced in the US with it doing several chores for the user, the Indian system is still under development and will take considerable time to reach to the level of productivity of its peers in US. One of the executives using the product said that “As of now, there is still a barrier to the extent of Alexa’s capabilities because you cannot use it to purchase groceries from a local store or book yourself an Uber. However, when connected to your home WiFi you can get Alexa to draft and send work emails, text messages, help children with their homework ranging from mathematics to history lessons, set up re minders, check food recipes, play music or a movie on Amazon Prime Video, and even do your shopping from Amazon”.

Though a one of its kind in India, the Echo-branded speakers, launched in the US in 2015, account for 70.6% of the voice-enabled speaker market in that country.