Echo Dot Top Selling Product on Amazon During Holiday 2017
Amazon reported yesterday that the Alexa-enabled Echo Dot was the top selling product on Amazon.com during the 2017 Holiday season. This is the second year-in-a-row that Echo Dot has topped the holiday sales charts for Amazon. The company also reported that Alexa-enabled Fire TV Stick was the second best-selling product during the shopping season. Voicebot pointed out that Echo Dot sold out prior to Christmas once again this year, but apparently it was joined by two other Alexa-enabled products.
Echo devices have been an extremely popular gift this year, with Echo Spot, Echo Dot and Echo Buttons selling out this holiday season.
More Devices, More Usage
Amazon also reported significant gains in Alexa usage compared to 2016 following the purchase of tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices.
- Holiday music listening through Alexa increased 3x
- Questions about Santa increased 4x
- Requests of Alexa for cooking related advices increased 9x
- Alexa usage on Fire TV grew almost 900%
- Alexa set 3x more times
Alexa App Tops App Store Charts for First Time
Sarah Perez from TechCrunch also notes that the Alexa app toped the iOS App Store charts for the fist time on December 25th. This data reinforces Amazon’s announcement since consumers need to download the app in order to set up their new Echo devices. Perez commented:
Grabbing the App Store’s top spot on Christmas is notable as it points to a consumer trend that’s taking place en masse. Last Christmas, the highest ranking the Alexa app was able to achieve was No. 4, according to data from Sensor Tower.
That strength seems to be holding two days after Christmas. The Alexa app remains the second most downloaded app today, trailing only YouTube.
The Google Home app also made a big App Store move rising from “No. 38 on Christmas Eve to No. 6” on Christmas day. VentureBeat’s Jeremy Horwitz also reported that Google Home made it to the second spot on Google Play according to App Annie. The smart speaker adoption is not limited to Amazon products as we have seen over the past several months, but the Echo still has a significant lead in consumer adoption that seems to be holding. Alexa sales strength isn’t limited to the U.S. Perez also reports:
While the [Alexa] app hit number one in the U.S. this year, it fared well in other markets where Echo speakers are available, too. In the U.K., the app hit No. 2 and in both Germany and Austria it climbed to No. 5. That points to a global holiday trend were people were buying Alexa-powered smart speakers in greater numbers.
The Year of the Smart Speaker
It will be hard to argue 2017 was anything other than the year of the smart speaker. Amazon Echo and Google Home product lines led a wave of consumer adoption that has made voice-based computing a common element of daily life for tens of millions of consumers. The introduction of low-priced Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home Mini products were crucial events that accelerated consumer adoption. You should expect this familiarity with smart speaker based voice computing to increase voice use on mobile in 2018 as well. Once habits are formed, they tend to spread.
