Amazon Echo owners are Amazon's most loyal and frequent shoppers, according to a new report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
The report says Amazon Echo owners spend an average of $1,700 a year on Amazon, more than the $1,300 Amazon Prime members are estimated to be spending a year on the e-commerce site. That's 66 percent more than the average spend by all Amazon customers, the report said.
"We've long thought that Amazon is keenly focused on building increasingly loyal and frequent shopping customers, and Echo seems to promote that goal," CIRP's co-founder Josh Lowitz said in the report.
The results, based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. shoppers in the 12-month period ended September 2017, partly explains why Amazon is so focused on expanding its Echo user base. The e-commerce giant has been offering steep discounts for its Echo devices and has come up with an array of product options targeting different needs, including an Echo device with a screen.
Amazon has never disclosed the exact sales figure for the Echo devices. This week, the company announced that it sold "millions" of Amazon devices and that the Echo Dot device was the best-selling product among Prime members. During the holidays, Amazon dropped the price of the Echo Dot to as little as $29.
"Based on the spending patterns of Echo owners, Amazon can certainly subsidize sales its Echo devices," Lowitz said in the report.