Amazon's Alexa and Echo Launches In India

The battle between virtual assistants is set to escalate with Amazon launching its Alexa voice assistant in India. India is the fourth market after US, UK and Germany where Amazon has launched the Alexa powered Echo, its smart speaker. Japan is next in line.

The e-commerce giant is hoping Echo will help it get a firm foothold into Indian households much before other tech giants, including Apple and Google both have developed similar smart speakers with proprietary voice assistants built in but are yet to launch them in India.

By talking to Echo, Amazon’s senior VP for devices and services, David Limp said, “You can do many things from hailing a cab and listening to Salman Khan’s new chartbuster to ordering food and shopping from Amazon. In terms of technology, we have tried to make sure we have optimized the service to work in a more-limited broadband environment. As we hear from customers, they will be able to tell us what to add and we can do it very quickly.”

In India, Alexa will deliver a customized Indian experience, which includes a female voice with a heavily Indianised accent.