Following the news that e-commerce giant Amazon plans to roll out Hindi language voice shopping experience feature in India:

Swati Verma, Associate Project Manager of Thematic Research at GlobalData, offers her view:

“India has emerged as a land of digital opportunities for foreign tech and media giants. Amazon, a leader in India’s e-commerce, video streaming, and smart speaker markets, faces competition from Flipkart in e-commerce, and competes with Netflix and domestic players such as Hotstar, Zee5, and SonyLIV in video streaming domain.

“As a result, the company looks to use localization to stay relevant and retain consumers in this highly competitive environment. Amazon’s localization strategy includes offering regional language support. The company already offers e-commerce app and website in five regional languages. It now plans to add voice search in Hindi to its shopping app. This will help the company reach a wider audience, including people in tier two cities, who prefer to communicate in regional languages.

“Amazon is also localizing its Alexa virtual assistant. Alexa started speaking Hindi in 2019. Recently, Amazon collaborated with Bollywood celebrity Amitabh Bachchan to add his voice to Echo devices, speaking both English and Hindi.

“To stay relevant in the video and music streaming area, Amazon has increased the volume of content in Hindi and other local languages. In 2017, it added JioSaavn, an Indian online music streaming service, to Alexa to entertain its listeners with Bollywood and other regional language songs. Amazon Prime Video has also created a library of Indian original series to compete against local players.”