Amazon isn't and never has had a goal of making money on the devices they sell... their goal is to make money on the content people buy to use on the devices, and that has worked well for them. Some devices sell at cost or a slight loss, the higher end models make a small profit.... but all these devices are tired into their own echo system right down to the App store. (Sounds familiar.... oh, hi Apple!) The only difference between Apple and Amazon is Apple won't put out a piece of hardware with less than a 40% return.
If you think Kindle Fires aren't selling with their price points starting at $99, you're wrong.
Amazon's never-ending losses come from other places:
1. R&D
2. They invest in new things always (cloud, devices, distribution, drones!, and subscriptions, etc.)
3. They discount and have small margins
4. Shipping kills them....
5. They are developing Prime services like music, instant, lending library... and these are a big investment such as making your own TV shows.)
If Amazon paused, and just kept everything as it is right now, they probably would turn a profit. How much money do you think they spent last year developing and testing product delivery by drone?????
And so this is also why wal-street mostly loves the stock even though it's never made money.... Amazon is constantly moving forward and ahead of rivals and quite innovative.
You can slam their tech products, but considering they only entered this space a few years ago, they've done quite well. Fire Phone is an Epic failure.... and I think it's the one device they didn't try to give away. If they had used the same business strategy with the Fire Phone, it wouldn't have been $199 on contract.... it would have been $199 unlocked or maybe even $99.
