Amazon Expected To Debut New Alexa Hardware At Annual Event

Amazon will host an event on Sept. 25 in Seattle to introduce new products and services.

According to CNBC, the eCommerce giant is expected to debut new hardware for its Echo family, as well as launch new products. At last year’s event, Amazon announced 15 Alexa-enabled products, including a microwave, new Amazon Echo products, a wall clock with Alexa built-in and more.

Amazon’s Alexa is reportedly the most-used voice assistant on the market, found in more than 60,000 smart home devices from 7,400 companies. That’s up from just 12,000 devices a year earlier. The number of products that support Alexa has also grown 200 percent in the past three quarters, noted the report. It also underscores the wide gap between Alexa and its rivals.

And at the beginning of the year, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, Dave Limp, said that more than 100 million devices with Alexa integrated into them had been sold so far — more than the number of phones that have Siri or Google Assistant preinstalled.

Amazon isn’t the only company unveiling new products. Earlier this week Apple held an event where it showcased its new iPhone, Apple Watch and iPads. The company also said it was going to offer a $50 price cut for the entry-level model of the iPhone 11. As a result, the company’s stock went up 3 percent during Wednesday’s (Sept. 11) trading and gave the company a capitalization of $1.01 trillion.

PYMNTS wrote a wrap up about the new phone designs, saying “the iPhone 11 looks remarkably similar to the X editions on the surface, from an exterior perspective, two big things are different. The first is that the new phone comes in a host of colors. The second, more noticeable, change is to the camera array. The iPhone 11, features three cameras; the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max feature four (which start with a third rear camera to provide what Apple CEO Tim Cook called the “most sophisticated” experience.”