There are Now More Than 70,000 Alexa Skills Worldwide, Amazon Announces 25 Top Skills of 2018

Amazon today announced its list of 25 Alexa skills of the year for 2018 spread across several categories including Games, Family, Wellness, Daily Habit, and Create Your Own (i.e. using Alexa Skill Blueprints). The announcement also indicated that there are now more than 70,000 Alexa skills worldwide. Amazon revealed that total Alexa skills were 50,000 on September 1, 2018. That suggests the number of Amazon Alexa skills rose by 192 per day worldwide.

The U.S. Alexa Skill Store is Still Driving Growth

Today, there are 54,891 Alexa skills available to U.S. Alexa users. That represents about 78% of the global total. In September, U.S. Alexa users had access to about 76% of all Alexa skills. That means the U.S. skill store is growing at a faster rate than the worldwide totals. Voicebot analysis suggests that about 155 new Alexa skills have been added per day to the U.S. store since early September accounting for 80% of the worldwide skill store growth.

Granted, many Alexa skills originated in the U.S. and are now available in other English speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and the U.K. And, some skills created in those countries were brought to the U.S. skill store. However, it seems clear that the U.S. is still the engine for growth of new Alexa skills. It will be worth tracking the totals in other languages in 2019 to see if that trend shifts.

The Top 25 Alexa Skills of 2018

Of course, not all of those Alexa skills fared equally with users and thus the top 25 list coming out shortly before the Christmas holiday. It is a wide-ranging list designed to introduce consumers to a variety of Alexa experiences. An Amazon media representative told Voicebot that the list was compiled based on a number of factors “including customer reviews, engagement, innovation, and more.” Publicly available data does not indicates a quantitative trend. The number of reviews for the selected skills ranges from 16 to 9,996 and the average user rating from 2.5 to 4.9.

In all, 10 games were recognized in the game category, five focused on families, four in wellness, five in daily habits, and one that is an Alexa Skill Blueprint. These skills represent more than just four of the official Alexa skill categories according to an Amazon spokesperson. However, they do offer insight into what Amazon believes will offer a good first experience for new Alexa device owners. The Alexa skill summary information in the table below was provided by Amazon. The total number of reviews and average rating data was collected on December 14, 2018.

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