Amazon’s Alexa Skill Revenue

Bret Kinsella, writing for Voicebot.ai:

The Information published (N.B. paywall) an article this morning saying that Amazon earned $1.4 million Alexa skill revenue through the first 10 months of 2019 which was well short of its $5.5 million target. This refers to the revenue that Amazon earns from in-skill purchases (ISP) where consumers pay for added features of Alexa skills from third-party developers. The article also says that 2018 revenue was “in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars” though the target was $5 million.

Amazon did not confirm these figures, but a spokesperson did respond by email today regarding The Information’s article saying that, “Alexa is a long-term bet for Amazon, and we’re as optimistic as ever about its future. We’ve just scratched the surface of what’s possible with Alexa.”

Alexa skill revenue referred to here is a similar approach to Apple’s fees for purchases through the iOS app store. Amazon takes a 30% fee and the developer gets the remaining 70%.

We have a few Alexa devices, and use them, but I didn’t even realize you could pay for additional skills like this. Never even occurred to me. I just don’t even think Amazon is trying on this front — they seem focused on the stuff you can do with Alexa out of the box and that’s it.

★ Tuesday, 17 December 2019