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Amazon Planning to Take on Apple in Smartphone Market

Well since most of the Phone market, here in the U.S. at least, does not buy their phones outright - they get them via a 2 year contract for no money or some money for the coveted handsets - its hard to see how Amazon is going to do anything here since they don't have a mobile phone network and will have to work with the carriers (who aren't going to allow Amazon to give users a loosing rate since it would affect them long term). They could sell some on pre-paid by selling them for nothing.

But it begs the question, who would want an Amazon branded phone?

Amazon makes okay cheap readers and a tablet (which is not selling well). Who wants to be visually advertising to the world that you've got the on-line "Walmart" branded phone as you go about your life (when you can get a non Amazon branded phone for free, contract, or very little, no contract, just as easily), for some people that won't matter, but for a big chunk of the market it sure would.

Seems poised to be a looser. JMHO
 
KnightWRX said:
I did say it used the same code base, it just can't be called Android. No matter what the code base for it says. Like killjoy, might I suggest actually reading my posts ?

Some people really are obtuse it seems and just can't grasp simple concepts. Amazon will never call it Android, they will never write "Android tablet" anywhere in market material, they won't even write "runs the Android OS code base".

For all intents and purposes, it's not an Android device. It doesn't fragment Android at all. And Google can't sue them, they are the ones licensing the code base under an open source license.

Just like IceWeasel isn't Firefox, even though it uses the same source code as Firefox. It's IceWeasel. They even explain how you're not running "Firefox" :

http://www.geticeweasel.org/useragent/
Click to expand...

I could be reading this wrong, but according to this (http://www.android.com/developers/branding.html), it could actually be called "Kindle X, an Android tablet" because "Android" is being used as a modifier? You're right that it can't simply be called "Android."

I'm under the impression that Amazon wouldn't want it to be associated with Android because they want to establish their own brand ecosystem rather than attach themselves to Google.
 
Xtremehkr said:
75% of industry profits would make it a dominant high end phone.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-5...ks-up-75-percent-of-all-mobile-phone-profits/

Image

Graphically. Would you rather be in Samsung's position as a market leader in the number of units sold, or Apple's position as the dominant profit maker?
Click to expand...

Shortsighted. Why? Because do you have any idea how much event 10% of the market represents in $$?

Samsung is doing just fine. They might not have Apple's profits - but they are making money.

And in the tech world - you're only as good as your latest product(s). Fate can turn on a dime. 10 years ago would you have thought Apple would dominate let alone even be IN the phone market? What would your prediction have been for RIM 10 years ago? Nokia? Get the idea? The past and even the present doesn't dictate the future.
 
Sasparilla said:
Amazon makes okay cheap readers and a tablet. Who wants to be visually publicly advertising you've got the on-line "Walmart" branded phone to the world as you go about your life (when you can get a non Amazon branded phone for free or very little just as easily), for some people that won't matter, but for a big chunk of the market it sure would.
Click to expand...

Firstly, are you saying that their products are 'cheap' as in price or 'cheap' as in quality? If it's the latter, you are wrong. They have wonderful products for the price. Secondly, why are you equating Amazon to Walmart? Two totally different business with polar opposite business ethics. Amazon has arguably the best customer service out of all the tech businesses. Lastly, why the hell should anyone give a damn about what other people think of YOUR phone? Who gives a damn if you're branded a certain way because of what electronic you're using. You're post completely confirms the stereotype surrounding Apple products. Most people on this site are very rational about it, but then there are people like you. Apple CAN be beat.
 
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Sasparilla said:
Well since most of the Phone market, here in the U.S. at least, does not buy their phones outright - they get them via a 2 year contract for no money or some money for the coveted handsets - its hard to see how Amazon is going to do anything here since they don't have a mobile phone network and will have to work with the carriers (who aren't going to allow Amazon to give users a loosing rate since it would affect them long term). They could sell some on pre-paid by selling them for nothing.

But it begs the question, who would want an Amazon branded phone?

Amazon makes okay cheap readers and a tablet (which is not selling well). Who wants to be visually advertising to the world that you've got the on-line "Walmart" branded phone as you go about your life (when you can get a non Amazon branded phone for free, contract, or very little, no contract, just as easily), for some people that won't matter, but for a big chunk of the market it sure would.

Seems poised to be a looser. JMHO
Click to expand...

Because not everyone thinks of Amazon as the "walmart" of branded phones. Because Amazon has a pretty good ecosystem already and lots of people LIVE on Amazon. There are a lot of reasons an Amazon phone could be successful regardless if *I* personally wouldn't buy one. Which - at this stage - I couldn't even tell you. You know. Because it doesn't exist yet.

A year ago you'd never convince me I'd own an Android phone either.
 
rendevouspoo said:
Firstly, are you saying that their products are 'cheap' as in price or 'cheap' as in quality? If it's the latter, you are wrong. They have wonderful products for the price. Secondly, why are you equating Amazon to Walmart? Two totally different business with polar opposite business ethics. Amazon has arguably the best customer service out of all the tech businesses. Lastly, why the hell should anyone give a damn about what other people think of YOUR phone? Who gives a damn if you're branded a certain way because of what electronic you're using. You're post completely confirms the stereotype surrounding Apple products. Most people on this site are very rational about it, but then there are people like you. Apple CAN be beat.
Click to expand...

Well, well my gosh...then there are people "like me" and my opinion eh? How dare I think and post, right?

Dude, loosen up...its just a Mac forum and we're talking about a theoretical Amazon product that may or may not be real.

I've had several Kindle's and like them, but they are cheap (price) and are built cheap (the back of my current one can easily flex under finger pressure), but reliable (for me so far).

Just like I said, for some people (like yourself perhaps) Amazon branding wouldn't matter, but for a big chunk of the market, I think it would....and there isn't a problem here for Amazon to solve (like the $200 tablet market that didn't exist before) of no inexpensive phones out there....just look at all the prepaid phones you can get for just initial air time costs or a little more....the market has tons of them. For contract phones you can get even more for just the contract.

If Amazon brings some out, by all means let them have at it, it just doesn't look like there's a market or a problem there for Amazon to solve (much less compelling than the Fire)....hence my opinion i.e. destined to be a loser. But we'll see.

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samcraig said:
Because not everyone thinks of Amazon as the "walmart" of branded phones. Because Amazon has a pretty good ecosystem already and lots of people LIVE on Amazon. There are a lot of reasons an Amazon phone could be successful regardless if *I* personally wouldn't buy one. Which - at this stage - I couldn't even tell you. You know. Because it doesn't exist yet.

A year ago you'd never convince me I'd own an Android phone either.
Click to expand...


You could be totally right, but at this point since Amazon doesn't have their own wireless network & they can't subsidize user phone plans at a loss and they will just be another phone vendor and there's already lots of free smart phones on contract and a good amount of "free" (just initial air time costs) prepaid phones...I just can't see the market for them to create. JMHO though. We get to wait and see, if the rumor is real.
 
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samcraig said:
Shortsighted. Why? Because do you have any idea how much event 10% of the market represents in $$?

Samsung is doing just fine. They might not have Apple's profits - but they are making money.
Click to expand...

Since Apple has 9% of the market and 75% of the smart phone market profit then 25% of the profit in that market is divided amongst the other 81% of the phones sold in that market.

I'd say Samsung in probably making a very slim profit margin, it's also more costly to be making so many phones. It just requires a bigger operation that doesn't always work more efficiently.

The point was that shipping the highest number of units is a poor metric for who the market leader is. Profit share is a better indicator of how desirable a phone is to consumers.
 
Xtremehkr said:
Since Apple has 9% of the market and 75% of the smart phone market profit then 25% of the profit in that market is divided amongst the other 81% of the phones sold in that market.

I'd say Samsung in probably making a very slim profit margin, it's also more costly to be making so many phones. It just requires a bigger operation that doesn't always work more efficiently.

The point was that shipping the highest number of units is a poor metric for who the market leader is. Profit share is a better indicator of how desirable a phone is to consumers.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree. But I'll add that marketshare is important too. Because of conversion. Meaning - if (throwing out a random number here) if Samsung has 50% of that 81% - and people love their phones - they can do a lot to adjust their profit margin (i.e. less phones released, more profit margin). We could argue which is a harder thing to attain - profit margin or marketshare - but I don't think either one of is is qualified (enough).

My point - vague as it it - is that both are important in the overall picture.
 
samcraig said:
I don't disagree. But I'll add that marketshare is important too. Because of conversion. Meaning - if (throwing out a random number here) if Samsung has 50% of that 81% - and people love their phones - they can do a lot to adjust their profit margin (i.e. less phones released, more profit margin). We could argue which is a harder thing to attain - profit margin or marketshare - but I don't think either one of is is qualified (enough).

My point - vague as it it - is that both are important in the overall picture.
Click to expand...

It certainly helps Samsung as a large scale manufacturer who make lots of components for other companies.
 
Lots of interesting discussions/tirades/questions/drivel on this new revelation. Personally, whether late to the party or not, succeed or fail, I welcome the advent of newcomers. Quite often unseemly things happen when one company, political party, race, etc. dominates.....
 
All this will be is a Fire phone. It will have little to no local storage and will use Amazon's cloud service to store music, books, etc. This is not appealing to me at all, because it takes a fixed cost and makes it subscription based (upfront memory cost vs. yearly cloud storage cost).
 
moldy912 said:
All this will be is a Fire phone. It will have little to no local storage and will use Amazon's cloud service to store music, books, etc. This is not appealing to me at all, because it takes a fixed cost and makes it subscription based (upfront memory cost vs. yearly cloud storage cost).
Click to expand...

I think you've got it nailed (if its real). I suppose to keep people in their system for buying audio / video / books (on a phone) and possibly sell more stuff on Amazon to the buyers (was thinking we'd heard the Fire buyers bought more stuff on Amazon...) it might be worth it to Amazon somehow to try this (sure seems expensive if it flubs)...

That leads one down the path that a Fire TV would really make sense for Amazon as well (portal to buying stuff but importantly lock the future streaming revenue to Amazon)....
 
spiderman0616 said:
Google is going to be ****.
Click to expand...

What's supposed to fit in the "****"?

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moldy912 said:
All this will be is a Fire phone. It will have little to no local storage and will use Amazon's cloud service to store music, books, etc. This is not appealing to me at all, because it takes a fixed cost and makes it subscription based (upfront memory cost vs. yearly cloud storage cost).
Click to expand...

Exactly. The cloud may be the "future", but it won't work for big files. Bandwidth cannot be upgraded as much or as frequently as flash memory can at the moment.
 
lilo777 said:
Are you suggesting that people who own Samsung phones think more about Apple devices than Samsung ones?
Click to expand...

That may actually be true, and some iPhone users probably think more about Samsung phones than Apple ones. You don't have to think much about a phone you already have.
 
Amazon may succeed if they release low cost 5.5" eReader/microtablet/phone hybrid similar to Samsung Note.

- A single eReader/microtablet/phone device makes practical sense
- The competition there is small. Note available only on ATT
 
rjohnstone said:
Incorrect.
Not being able to use a trademark descriptor does not change what it is.
It is still Android.
It's using the level 10 SDK and API stack. (Gingerbread).
That makes it an Android device.

Google can only bar them from using trademarks, not the name of the open source code it was built upon.

Read the build.prop file.



OMG... it says it's Android.... Google should sue! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You know, "Droid" is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm. It even says so on the bottom of Droid ads if you look carefully. I'm assuming they licensed it. I don't know if this also goes for "Android" or not.
 
rendevouspoo said:
I'd like to see the source that says they are losing money from the Fire. Even if they are, they are more than making up for it in the selling of their e-books. They run the world of e-books.
Click to expand...

No. Amazon is not loosing money from the Fire. It's a myth. These days it cost less then $100 to make a tablet. Best Buy sells plenty of those:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=2360467191232290557&id=pcat17080&type=page&lcn=Computers+%26+Tablets&sc=abComputerSP&st=processingtime%3A%3E1900-01-01&usc=abcat0500000&cp=1&sp=%2Bcurrentprice+skuid&nrp=15&qp=q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%2374f~~cpcmcat209000050006%23%230%23%23tg~~nf865%7C%7C416e64726f6964&add_to_pkg=false&pagetype=listing&gf=y

Amazon makes pretty penny on the Fire. And Apple is milking a consumer big time.
 
By far the biggest opportunity for a new phone maker is to do something to make the monthly payment to the carriers more affordable. For most people the new Verizon plans are worse than the old ones, for example, and with data caps combined with 4G a lot of people can't use their smartphones like they'd like to (streaming a lot of Netflix, Rdio, etc.).

Could amazon come up with some way to fix that problem by offering a subsidized phone with unlimited 4G and smaller monthly bills? That is the only way they can set themselves apart because how much different is another Android based device similar to the Kindle Fire really going to be compared to what's out there now?

I really doubt they have a way to make the monthly payment more affordable while getting around data caps so I don't see this as a huge success. The carriers are the limiting factor by far, and that should be the focus for whoever wants to release a game changing device. And I don't think even amazon has that ability. Apple doesn't, so I can't imagine amazon doing an end-around the system. But if they did, by offering a competent 4G device that revolves around the amazon ecosystem, that's cheaper to purchase, offers unlimited high speed data, and a lower monthly cost, they would not only compete they would become the second best selling handset, kind of like the Kindle Fire compared to the iPad.
 
faroZ06 said:
What's supposed to fit in the "****"?

----------



Exactly. The cloud may be the "future", but it won't work for big files. Bandwidth cannot be upgraded as much or as frequently as flash memory can at the moment.
Click to expand...

I agree totally. The whole "cloud" storage idea is not compatible with current data caps. Until that is addressed it is not realistic to rely on cloud storage. It's okay for a wifi device used at home I guess, but to really rely on cloud storage we need 4G and unlimited data. Without that it's just silly to pretend that it can take the place of expanded flash memory.
 
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