Amazon is bringing its popular smart speaker Echo devices to Japan, and product shipment is expected to start this week.
Amazon is bringing its popular smart speaker Echo devices to Japan, and product shipment is expected to start this week.
Voice assistant Alexa will be available in the country in Japanese as well. Which is to say, users can start to use Alexa on Echo devices or smartphones in Japanese; also, developers can develop Alexa skills in Japanese.
Moving into the Japanese market will bring Alexa availability to six countries and three languages in total (English, German and Japanese). Although Echo is already available in India, it is not localized and only supports English like in the U.S. and the UK. In other words, Echo in Japan will be Amazon’s first strong push of Alexa into the Asian market.
There are currently two other smart speakers in the Japanese market – Line’s Clova Wave and Google Home, which both fully support the Japanese language.
Being an e-commerce platform, Amazon doesn’t dominate the Japanese market like it does in the U.S. Local player Rakuten is the country’s top e-commerce firm, which has a strong presence in other areas such as financial services too.
Amazon has launched its e-commerce service in the country and offers a full suite of Prime membership services that include same-day delivery. Launching Echo could help boost Amazon’s sales in the country, even though Rakuten is expected to keep dominating the market.
Since Japan is the third largest global economy and smart home adoption is expected to surge in the country, the smart speaker battle between Amazon and Google may reach a new level after the latest Echo launch in Japan.
Three Echo models will be available in Japan – the standard Echo, the Echo Dot and the high-end Echo Plus.