Amazon plans to turn its website into the largest e-commerce portal within the Indian subcontinent. For the same cause, the organization is investing $5 billion in its Indian unit. With this move, Amazon might also introduce its Echo lineup for India by end of the year. The firm had rolled out its Prime subscription service in the country last year. Following which the Prime Video was released only a few months ago.
This isn’t the first time news about Amazon Echo’s availability in India. However, reports suggest that Amazon will make its voice-based assistant available, with support for regional languages such as Marathi, Tamil, and Hindi. Indian users will now have the option of conversing with Alexa in three regional languages. The organization will initially offer the voice assistant in English, with support for local languages coming shortly thereafter.
The voice-based assistant from Amazon has turned into a robust platform over the last two years, with Alexa touting over 1,200 skills. It can almost do everything from hailing a cab to ordering items on Amazon to sending a text with your voice, and so on.
However, there remain a few India-specific hurdles when it comes to using Alexa for purchasing items on Amazon India. This is because all online transactions in the country require two-factor authentication, but it looks like Amazon is exploring workarounds. The organization will use passphrases and other India-specific innovations to address such issues.
Amazon might offer lucrative discounts initially to incentivize customers to pick up the Echo. The idea is to release Alexa and Echo at very attractive pricing offers in the beginning, a strategy that brought success during the launch of Amazon Prime Video. The offerings could also be linked with existing users of Amazon’s services in India, thus making it more appealing for the users.
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