Article content

Canadians wanting to join in on the Amazon Echo fun in the United States have been given a sliver of hope, thanks to new job postings surfacing online from the retail giant.

Amazon.com Inc has posted 12 new positions for its Toronto, Ont. offices since May 11, mainly looking for Amazon Alexa developers and managers for an entire Alexa unit.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or New Amazon job postings fuel speculation about possible Echo Canadian launch Back to video

These new Canadian job postings come just two months after Amazon partnered with Toronto-based Connected Lab for a weekend-long hackathon in the city, where more than a dozen teams worked on developing new “skills” for Alexa.





“Echo and Alexa are only available in the U.S.,” Amazon told the Financial Post in a statement. “We have nothing to share at this time regarding availability in Canada.”

The company added that teams in the Toronto offices work on “various Amazon businesses” and there are people working on Alexa development “around the world.”

The speculation of a wider Echo launch follows this week’s announcement from Google about the release of its own voice-activated product for the home, called Google Home. Using the power of Google Search, it will be a heavy-hitting competitor for the Echo and no doubt expedites any timeline Amazon had for a wider rollout (if it has one at all).

Amazon Echo has been a hit for the company since it became widely available in the U.S. last year. The hands-free speaker is powered by Amazon’s Alexa, a Siri-like system that the user can speak with to ask for information, order products and even issue commands to control devices in their home.

While Amazon won’t release specific sales numbers, a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners in April estimated the company had already sold 3 million Echo units.

The Amazon Echo retails for US$180.

jomcconnell@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/JoshMcConnell