Chandigarh sees increase in Alexa adoption for entertainment

Amazon Echo users from Punjab increased by 23% in a year

Amazon Alexa became the best destination for entertainment with features such as Amitabh Bachchan celebrity voice, music, movies, TV shows, jokes, shayari, games and more.

Chandigarh: Customers from Punjab and particularly Chandigarh are enjoying interacting with the Alexa voice service on the Amazon Echo range of devices. In 2021, the number of Echo customers from Punjab increased by 23%.  Top cities in Punjab where Echo users come from include Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Rupnagar, Patiala, Panchkula, Jalandhar and Amritsar.

Customers interact with Alexa in English, Hindi and Hinglish for listening to music, jokes, shayari, nursery rhymes, watching TV shows/ movies, asking for information and much more. Many customers also interact with Alexa on the Amazon shopping app for Android, Fire TV devices and Alexa built-in speakers, TVs, smartphones, smart watches and more by other brands.

 Increased adoption of smart speakers in non-metros

A study* titled ‘Understanding Smart Speaker Usage in non-metro cities’ revealed that on an average, customers in non-metros use smart speakers for over 2.5 hours every day. It is also a part of the family as 81% of smart speaker owners keep it in the living room where everyone can access it. The study also revealed that 55% customers who use smart speaker felt they are able to better enjoy music now than before. The top reasons customers enjoy music on smart speakers are – sound quality (58%), ease of listening to music while multi-tasking (53%), and ease of changing songs and volume with voice (44%). 

 “We keep innovating and adding new features to make Alexa more relevant and useful for the entire household. Some examples include the Amitabh Bachchan celebrity voice feature, understanding and playing music requests in many Indian languages including Punjabi and so on”, says Puneesh Kumar, Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India. “Customers in India have made the Alexa an integral part of their lives and are interacting millions of times each week for a variety of requests. I am excited to see increased usage of Alexa from customers in Chandigarh too.”

Top trends that keep customers entertained

• Asking for songs and music is one of the most popular requests to Alexa. Alexa receives over 17 lakh requests every day from customers in India to play their favourite songs.
•  The most popular song requests from Alexa customers in Chandigarh is Punjabi pop. Current top songs include Bijlee Bijlee by Harrdy Sandhu, Lover by Diljeet Dosanjh, and Insane by AP Dhillon, Shinda Kahlon, Gurrinder Gill & Gminxr. Listen to top songs from any city across the world by asking questions such as “Alexa, play popular songs from Chandigarh”.
• Shree Hanuman Chalisa continues to be among the top 10 requests throughout the year by customers from Chandigarh. They also ask Alexa for devotional songs such as Ek Onkar, Aar Nanak Paar Nanak, Sai Ve and more.
• Customers watch their favourite TV shows and movies by asking Alexa on Fire TV and Echo Show devices. On Fire TV, Alexa can help you search content from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hotstar, Apple TV, YouTube, ZEE5, Voot and more with simple voice commands. Try “Alexa, show Punjabi movies” or “Alexa,  search Christmas movies”. If you have a Amazon Prime subscription, you can just say “Alexa, watch Honsla Rakh’ to enjoy the latest movie starring Diljit Dosanjh.
• The most recent addition of the Amitabh Bachchan celebrity voice feature on Alexa has kept customers in India entertained. The feature offers unique voice experiences like anecdotes from his life and movies, jokes, motivational quotes, poems, tongue twisters, music and more in the esteemed actor’s voice. Since launch, the most popular requests have been “Amit ji, sing Madhushala”, “Amit ji, how are you?”, “Amit ji, give me a dialogue”, and “Amit ji, tell me a story from Sholay”.
• Alexa has become a story-teller. Alexa narrates almost 19,000 stories per day, in Hindi and English. Customers also listen to hundreds of hours of audio books and entertainment narrated by celebrities and renowned storytellers from Audible and Audible Suno.
• Customer love asking Alexa for jokes. Alexa makes customers laugh close to 9,000 times every day by cracking a joke. She also makes for a good laugh-along buddy, as customers asked Alexa to laugh along around 12,000 times every day.

·        With access to the world’s largest collection of shayari in Urdu via Rekhta’s Alexa skill, customers ask for a shayari at least 3,000 times a day. This includes poems in Urdu, love shayari and the works of popular poets like Mirza Ghalib.