Amazon’s lineup of Alexa-enabled smart speakers is just a few years old now, but it’s already one of the hottest new device lines in the world. The secret sauce behind Amazon’s smart speakers is Alexa, the company’s virtual personal assistant that can answer questions, order products from Amazon, and even control smart home devices like thermostats, light bulbs, and plenty more. In fact, Alexa can even control “dumb” devices that aren’t connected.
Special discounts like the ones Amazon has available right now on the Echo and Echo Dot are believed to help drive tremendous sales. That said, no one outside of Amazon actually knows how many Alexa speakers the company sells because Amazon doesn’t report hardware unit sales with its earnings. But a new report may reveal Amazon’s 2017 sales numbers for its Echo speaker line, and they’re just as impressive as we thought.
Digitimes is hit or miss when it comes to reporting on plans for unreleased devices, but the site’s misses can often be attributed to changes in company’s plans. The site gets early info from sources inside the factories that build products like Apple’s iPhones and Amazon’s Echo speakers, and that info can change until a product actually enters mass production.
On Friday, Digitimes set its sights on the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and the rest of the smart speakers in the company’s lineup. According to the site’s unnamed sources, Amazon will ship more than 10 million Echo speakers in 2017.
The company’s low-cost Echo Dot is largely responsible for those impressive figures, according to the report. In fact, Digitimes’ sources say that Amazon surpassed its full-year shipment goal for the Echo Dot in just a few months earlier this year. It’s no wonder, since the affordable $49.99 price point hits consumers’ sweet spot — and the Echo Dot can be had for as little as $38 right now, thanks to a limited-time sale.
Google has its own smart speaker that was released in response to the Echo, though the Google Home clearly isn’t putting much of a dent in Alexa speaker sales. Apple is reportedly also about to announce a Siri speaker during its WWDC 2017 keynote this coming Monday, yet it’s unclear if the company can push past the stigma that still surrounds Siri.
