Amazon is continuing its push to have its technology installed at the start of large building projects, and has recently announced that it has struck up a partnership with property developer Embassy in India.
Following on from its much-publicised partnership with Lennar to develop the “world’s first Alexa-powered WiFi homes” announced last July, Amazon has widened its approach outside of the US to target the smart home market in India.
A number of new homes have been launched by Embassy and Amazon India as part of its ‘Embassy Edge’ project – billed as the first collaboration of its kind in the country.
Starting at 48,500-square-metres, “1-BHK” to “3-BHK” apartments form part of the large Embassy Springs complex located in Bangalore's Devanahalli area. Houses are priced from around Rs 36 (€46,000/£40,000) lakh to around Rs 81 lakh (€103,000/£90,000) and all come equipped with Echo devices and Alexa-enabled home appliances.
Although not all aspects of home living will be automated, key features such as control of lighting, playing music and air conditioning will be handled by Alexa.
Although property search company JLL-India estimates that only 3-4% of total residential space in India is comprised of “smart” homes, Embassy’s group chairman and managing director, Jitu Virwani, has come out to state that this move signals a market very open to home technology, with huge potential to grow in the next few years.
Virwani told the Financial Express that market growth will be primarily be driven by “tech-savvy” millennials – backed by Statistica stats indicating that most users of smart home technology fell into the “18-34 year-old” category and more specifically in 2017, 45.5% of smart home users were in the “25-34 year-old” range.
Although Amazon India remain tight-lipped on other partnerships on the horizon, country manager for Alexa Experience and Devices, Puneesh Kumar, did state that “ongoing conversations” are taking place exploring other collaborations.
The Embassy Edge homes will officially launch on Friday 8 June, 2018.
In the booming the US market, it was recently reported that Amazon is making serious gains over Apple when it came to striking up partnerships with key property developers.
Source: Financial Express India