Internal Amazon Documents Show Alexa Owners Aren't Using Devices

Lucas NolanDecember 24, 2021

According to a recent report, Amazon is aware that many owners of its Alexa devices are not using them after as little as two weeks of use. According to internal documents viewed by Bloomberg, as many as 25 percent of Amazon’s smart home assistants become expensive paperweights just weeks after being activated.

A recent report from Bloomberg reveals that Amazon knows that users of its Alexa devices are not utilizing the full capabilities of the smart home assistant, and often are becoming bored with the device as quickly as two weeks after getting it.

Amazon Echo (AP)

The internal Amazon documents viewed by Bloomberg included a number of interesting statistics and details about Amazon’s device business:

A lot of Alexa owners purchase the devices at Christmas time, but often forget about the product soon afterward. In some years, between 15 and 25 percent of new Alexa devices were no longer active after being used for around two weeks.
Amazon projected a loss of around $5 per Alexa device sold in 2018 and planned that by 2028 it would make a $2 profit per device sold. Amazon has largely aimed to make the device profitable by using them to direct Amazon users to other Amazon services.
A planning document from 2019 revealed that Alexa users usually discover half of all the features they will ever use on the device within the first three hours of using it. This includes the uses most people think of with the smart home assistant such as playing music, controlling other smart devices, setting timers, quick information lookups, etc.

Overall this would appear to spell bad news for Amazon’s Alexa device lineup. It seems that user interest in the device falls quickly and poor discoverability for new features means that overall many are beginning to wonder why they need such an expensive product for basic uses like playing music.

An Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg: “The assertion that Alexa growth is slowing is not accurate. The fact is that Alexa continues to grow — we see increases in customer usage, and Alexa is used in more households around the world than ever before.”