Amazon Echo devices hit by Christmas Day outage as thousands set up Alexa speaker

'Amazon has been a victim of its own success,' one user says

New Amazon Echo owners reported their Alexa-powered device was not working on Christmas Day (Getty)

Amazon Echo devices were hit by a major outage on Christmas Day after new owners reported issues with the smart home speaker.

Users in the UK and across Europe took to social media to complain of difficulties in setting up the Alexa voice assistant, with some suggesting that the large number of new owners attempting to connect.

"Good luck to everyone who was delighted to receive their Amazon Echo this morning," one person wrote on Twitter.

"Amazon has been a victim of its own success. Imagine the fun that new owners have been experiencing this morning, unsure as to why their new gadget isn't working."

Another Echo owner said: "Oh dear. My daughter is not happy that her Xmas present is now not working... surely they knew there would be quite a few new ones being switched on today - will laugh if it's a capacity issue. #AmazonEcho sort it out!"

Some users reported having issues connecting the smart speaker to other services, such as Spotify.

Spotify customer service agents responded to reports of problems on Twitter.

Some users said leaving the device for an hour and coming back to it resolved any issues they were having.

Online diagnostics service Outage Report registered thousands of reports of issues with Amazon Echo, while outage monitor Down Detector registered a similar number of reports.

A map of the outage reports showed that the UK appeared to be the hardest hit, with other countries affected including Spain, Germany and Austria.

"Some Echo devices in Europe had intermittent connections," Amazon's customer service Twitter account posted. "These issues have now been resolved and the Alexa Service is working normally."