Sales of smart speakers have "fallen off a cliff" as customers cut back and trade down on electrical items, the boss of Currys has said. Sales overall fell 7% in the year to 29 April as people bought cheaper goods due to the rising cost of living. Shoppers also bought more products on credit to spread their costs. "People aren't as interested in Amazon Alexa as they used to be," managing director Alex Baldock told the BBC's Today programme. This is surprising as many industry analysts have predicted a boom in smart speakers. However, the firm said that after a surge in sales during the first stages of the Covid pandemic, people were not upgrading. Mr Baldock said that shoppers were "being careful with their money". He said some shoppers were also trading down to buy lower value items. These included TVs and smaller kitchen appliances like kettles, where an entry level product "still boils water for you", the firm said. Smart speakers were "selling like hot cakes" a few years ago, but now sales have come back down, according to Joseph Teasdale, head of tech at Enders Analysis. He said people do not tend to replace them once they have one, and "maybe you buy a second device for the kitchen, but not much more than that".
