Bengaluru, Feb 15 (IANS): With almost 50 per cent customers from non-metro cities, the number of requests to Alexa in 2021 increased by 68 per cent since the previous year, Amazon India said on Tuesday.

During the announcement of fourth anniversary of Alexa in India, the company said that Alexa has entertained customers by playing more than 21.6 lakh songs every day, genre such as kids, devotional and regional language were extremely prominent in the top 20 songs.

"We are constantly working to make Alexa more useful and delightful for customers in India with launches such as our most advanced Echo Show 10 with intelligent motion, India's first celebrity voice with Amitabh Bachchan, and the Mahindra XUV700 vehicle with Alexa built-in," Puneesh Kumar, Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India, said in a statement.

"Many customers have shared feedback that having Alexa around makes life more fun, convenient and productive. This encouragement helps us to continue innovating and work like it is still day one," Kumar added.

As the Alexa smart home selection increased by 72 per cent year-over-year (yoy) with new products from brands like Xiaomi, OnePlus, Hindware, and Atomberg, Alexa responded to over 2.6 lakh requests for controlling smart home appliances every day.

From sports, movie dialogs, and word definitions to tough math problems, weather, and the latest stock market updates, customers quizzed Alexa with around 1.7 lakh questions every day.

During March-April-2021, customers asked 11,500 questions every day about Covid-19, health and wellness related topics. Customers also loved starting and concluding their days with Alexa, they wished "Alexa, good morning" and "Alexa, good night" 11,520 times every day.

The company said that, in the last 4 years, millions of Indian customers have used the Alexa voice service in English, Hindi and Hinglish on Echo range of devices, Fire TV, Amazon shopping app for Android, and Alexa built-in devices by other brands.