Amazon Alexa offering over 30,000 skills in India

The Alexa Skills Store in India features skills across categories like astrology, bollywood, cricket, devotion, entertainment, education, food, homes services and kids, among others.

Bengaluru: Amazon on Thursday announced that Alexa customers in India can now choose from over 30,000 skills offered by top brands and developers.

The Alexa Skills Store in India features skills across categories like astrology, bollywood, cricket, devotion, entertainment, education, food, homes services and kids, among others.

"With over 30,000 skills in the 'Alexa Skills Store' in India, brands and developers truly understand the opportunity that voice presents."

"Today, over 40 devices with Alexa built-in are available to Indian customers, from multiple brands like Sony, LG, Bose, iBall, Panasonic and boat," Dilip R.S., Country Manager for Alexa Skills and Voice Services, Amazon India said in a statement.

Amazon last month announced that developers can now start building Alexa skills for customers in India with the new Hindi voice model available in Alexa Skills Kit (ASK).

The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) is a collection of free, self-service APIs and tools that make it fast and easy for developers to create skills, or capabilities, for Alexa.

Apart from Hindi, users can respond to Alexa's English statements in Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati and other regional languages.

Alexa is currently available in over 80 countries and speaks more than 14 language variants.

Rohit Prasad, Vice President and Head Scientist for Alexa, told IANS recently that the company is working on infusing regional languages capabilities in Alexa for the Indian market but these are early days.

Right now, Alexa can understand some Hinglish commands but these are few and far between.

Amazon also announced "Alexa VOXCON", company's first conference in India dedicated to all things voice -- in New Delhi on September 18-19.