“Amazon.com Inc. is readying an updated Kindle Fire tablet, seeking to revive demand for the 10- month-old device as the market crowds with competing machines from Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc.,” Danielle Kucera reports for Bloomberg.
“Amazon is holding an event tomorrow in Santa Monica, California, where it is likely to announce the newest versions of its line of Kindle e-readers and the Kindle Fire tablet, according to Anthony DiClemente, an analyst at Barclays Plc.,” Kucera reports. “Last year’s holiday shoppers helped vault Amazon’s share of the market to 17 percent in the December period, according to research firm IDC. Demand for the Kindle Fire has since stalled — the device’s first-quarter share slipped to 4 percent.”
Kucera reports, “In June, both Microsoft and Google announced their own tablets, pushing into a market that may reach $66.4 billion this year, according to research firm DisplaySearch. And Apple plans to debut a smaller, cheaper iPad by year-end, two people with knowledge of the plans said in July.”
MacDailyNews Take: And, when and if Apple does so, nothing else will matter.
Kucera reports, “Amazon, based in Seattle, said in August that exclusive Kindle books have been purchased, downloaded or borrowed from the company’s virtual lending library more than 100 million times. Amazon doesn’t give revenue figures for purchases on the tablet. The company’s sales of all digital media last year reached $17.8 million and accounted for 37 percent of revenue, data compiled by Bloomberg show.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s net sales of digital media and services were $2.1 billion in the last reported quarter (Q312).
Kucera reports, “At tomorrow’s event, Amazon may announce more than one tablet and offer the option to upgrade memory for a higher price, Barclays’s DiClemente said in a note to clients this week. The company may also add a built-in camera and let users connect to the Web through a cellular network. Right now, the device can only access the Internet through a wireless connection.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck convincing the customers you burned the first time around with that POS to try your upgraded POS, Amazon.
Oh no, not that!
Kindles are not iPad competitors. They are eReaders, and good ones at that. Ever take your iPad to the Beach? Didn’t think so.
I agree, They are not iPad competitors. Nothing really is. However, they keep trying to sell them as such.
And those who haven’t figured it out are sold.
Have you ever taken the Kindle Fire outside, same problem.
Some problems? Go figure.
No, I actually never have.
Cos I was smart enough not to buy one.
The Fire is not a real Kindle despite the branding.
Real Kindles are dedicated e-readers that use e-ink. The fake ripoff Fandroid device is a piece of trash not worthy of the bag it is thrown away in.
Still waiting for Apple to introduce an e-reader mode. I know the glass reflection is a big issue but an e-reader would help partially overcome that.
They’re measuring digital media sales in the tens of millions? Amazon? For all their talk you’d think they’d be making more than chump change.
POS ? tell us what you really think of them.
LOL !!
methinks AAPL is going to blow away everyone next week !
AAPL might soar. Yet lets see if the products do also.
Not likely.
Why not pray tell?
Kindle Fire, ah, put it into retirement.
A loss leader just for a paltry $17M in sales? Even if growth is well into the double digits it will be a long while before than number is meaningful for a company with a $111B market cap.
I am licking my chops waiting to short this stock. What a ridiculous valuation.
“…helped vault Amazon’s share of the market to 17 percent in the December period….” They vaulted to 17 % without ever announcing now many kindle fires were sold. It’s all an estimate.
So exactly why would anyone with an ounce of brains want to buy a ‘Kindle Fire’ tablet let alone an update when you have the iPad mini only days away?
Can someone please explain to me how they can calculate Kindle Fire market share when Amazon won’t tell anyone how many units they’ve sold?
——RM