There are Now More Than 70,000 Alexa Skills Worldwide, Amazon Announces 25 Top Skills of 2018
Amazon today announced its list of 25 Alexa skills of the year for 2018 spread across several categories including Games, Family, Wellness, Daily Habit, and Create Your Own (i.e. using Alexa Skill Blueprints). The announcement also indicated that there are now more than 70,000 Alexa skills worldwide. Amazon revealed that total Alexa skills were 50,000 on September 1, 2018. That suggests the number of Amazon Alexa skills rose by 192 per day worldwide.
The U.S. Alexa Skill Store is Still Driving Growth
Today, there are 54,891 Alexa skills available to U.S. Alexa users. That represents about 78% of the global total. In September, U.S. Alexa users had access to about 76% of all Alexa skills. That means the U.S. skill store is growing at a faster rate than the worldwide totals. Voicebot analysis suggests that about 155 new Alexa skills have been added per day to the U.S. store since early September accounting for 80% of the worldwide skill store growth.
Granted, many Alexa skills originated in the U.S. and are now available in other English speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and the U.K. And, some skills created in those countries were brought to the U.S. skill store. However, it seems clear that the U.S. is still the engine for growth of new Alexa skills. It will be worth tracking the totals in other languages in 2019 to see if that trend shifts.
The Top 25 Alexa Skills of 2018
Of course, not all of those Alexa skills fared equally with users and thus the top 25 list coming out shortly before the Christmas holiday. It is a wide-ranging list designed to introduce consumers to a variety of Alexa experiences. An Amazon media representative told Voicebot that the list was compiled based on a number of factors “including customer reviews, engagement, innovation, and more.” Publicly available data does not indicates a quantitative trend. The number of reviews for the selected skills ranges from 16 to 9,996 and the average user rating from 2.5 to 4.9.
In all, 10 games were recognized in the game category, five focused on families, four in wellness, five in daily habits, and one that is an Alexa Skill Blueprint. These skills represent more than just four of the official Alexa skill categories according to an Amazon spokesperson. However, they do offer insight into what Amazon believes will offer a good first experience for new Alexa device owners. The Alexa skill summary information in the table below was provided by Amazon. The total number of reviews and average rating data was collected on December 14, 2018.
| Skill Name | Description | Developer | Reviews | Average Rating |
| Game Skills | ||||
| Beat the Intro | Beat the Intro has you join Moozzo, music expert and host, to guess the song title and artist as fast as possible. | Musicplode Media Ltd. | 228 | 4.2 |
| Heads Up! | Play the hilarious game from the Ellen DeGeneres show with Alexa. Pick a category and Alexa will provide up to three fun facts and clues to help you guess the word — see how many you can get right in 90 seconds! | The Ellen DeGeneres Show | 3,631 | 3.8 |
| National Geographic Geo Quiz | National Geographic Geo Quiz puts your geography knowledge to the test. | National Geographic Society | 1,826 | 4.0 |
| Question of the Day | Every day, Question of the Day poses a new trivia question for you to respond to, from arts and entertainment to literature and science. Collect points and hear how others have answered. | VoicePress.AI | 3,927 | 4.9 |
| Skyrim Very Special Edition | For the very first time ever, take your rightful place as the Dragonborn of legend (again) and explore Skyrim using the power of your own voice…yourThu’um! | Bethesda Game Studios | 260 | 4.5 |
| The Magic Door | The Magic Door is an interactive adventure game with original stories. You can tell Alexa what choices to make as you explore a magical land with various regions, including a forest, sea, garden and castle. You will collect hidden items, solve riddles, and help magical creatures. | The Magic Door, LLC | 883 | 4.3 |
| Trivia Hero | A general knowledge race against the clock. You have just 60 seconds to answer as many tricky trivia questions as you can. You can play on your own or against up to 20 others. | labworks.io | 237 | 4.6 |
| World Mathematics League | World Mathematics League is a global level mathematics competition. Every day you will get a chance to contribute to your team’s score by solving simple math questions. | Shanthan Kesharaju | 64 | 4.9 |
| Would You Rather for Family | Would You Rather for Family is a simple but addicting game for all ages where you make a choice between two lighthearted and silly situations. | Voice Games | 3,273 | 4.9 |
| Yes Sire | This medieval fantasy game includes a needy peasant, backstabbing royalty, and a king that is never satisfied. You sit as a medieval lord of the realm, and are presented with an ever-expanding array of difficult choices to run your kingdom and stay in power. | Volley Inc. | 1,185 | 4.7 |
| Family Skills | ||||
| Animal Workout | Dance like a giraffe, and more, with this quirky game that gets you moving. | For Jack & Jill | 236 | 4.4 |
| Chompers | This skill helps families build good teeth-brushing habits. Chompers makes teeth-brushing entertaining by telling stories when you brush your teeth, counts the times you brush, and celebrates your streaks. | Gimlet Media | 94 | 4.6 |
| Kids Court | Kids Court lets kids take their friends, siblings, or parents to Kids Court to get a ruling, all while learning basic facts about the US judicial system. | Pretzel Labs | 92 | 4.6 |
| Lemonade Stand | Lemonade Stand focuses on careful listening, math, money, business, understanding odds and chance statements, and managing expectations by owning a lemonade stand. | Mark Einhorn | 72 | 4.7 |
| Sesame Street | Elmo from Sesame Street will talk about the letter of the day or play a good game of Hide & Seek, with silly sounds as clues to where he’s hiding. | Sesame Workshop | 776 | 3.8 |
| Wellness Skills | ||||
| Chop Chop | Chop Chop is a hands free kitchen companion serving up fun, easy to follow tutorials on chopping fresh produce. | bondad.fm | 16 | 4.5 |
| Fitbit | Check in on your daily Fitbit progress with Alexa. Ask Alexa if you hit your sleep goal, how you did yesterday, or just get a quick update on the stats you care about the most. | Fitbit, Inc. | 1,315 | 4.2 |
| Headspace: Guided Meditation for Everybody | Headspace helps you build a meditation practice that fits in to your daily schedule with guided practice, plus a sleep exercise to help you wind down. | Headspace | 104 | 4.0 |
| Sleep and Relaxation Sounds | Sleep and Relaxation Sounds plays calming sounds on loop (from ocean sounds to rainforest sounds to white noise) to help you fall asleep faster, relax, meditate, or drown out distracting noises. | Voice Apps, LLC. | 9,996 | 4.8 |
| Daily Habit Skills | ||||
| Find My Phone | Find My Phone allows you to easily call your lost phone from Alexa. | www.opearlo.com | 1,827 | 4.1 |
| AnyPod | AnyPod lets you play any podcast. Explore thousands of comedy, drama, music, tech, news, education, and pop culture audio programs. | Harrison Digital Media | 282 | 3.9 |
| Big Sky | The Big Sky skill gives you hyper-local, hour-by hour forecasts. | Philosophical Creations | 2,524 | 4.5 |
| Make Me Smart | Get smarter in 2 minutes a day. Marketplace hosts Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood tell you what you need to know about the economy, pop culture, tech and current events in this daily skill. | Marketplace | 474 | 4.5 |
| TuneIn Live | TuneIn Live brings you the best collection of thousands of live sporting events and premium news stations to your Alexa-enabled device. | TuneIn | 64 | 2.5 |
| Create Your Own Skills | ||||
| Custom Q&A Blueprint | Customize your own Alexa responses in just minutes with one of the most popular Alexa Skill Blueprints—no coding required. | Skill Blueprints | N/A | N/A |
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