Amazon’s tablet competitor possible named “Hollywood” is likely to be cheaper than the iPad:
With no real news coming from Amazon concerning the anticipated “Hollywood” tablet, so like any good reporters, a dash of speculation is sometimes needed to fire up the grey cells when a lack of reality is present.
So in firm speculation mode with a little help from Forrester research, lets take a look at an area that seems to be making the rounds right now, and that is pricing.
Amazon tablet price war:
The latest rumour mills are showing that Amazon maybe looking to take Apple on head to head in a dirty old price war, an area many manufacturers have been reluctant to move towards and so the consumer has seen very little movement in the cost of one tablet over the other. In such a head to head with current manufacturers Apple’s iPad has been winning hands down due to favourable reviews and let’s face it a better tablet experience and app store, though Android based tablets as a whole are taking massive market share, individually Apple are still in the lead though.
However, a recent unexpected forced price change within the market, related to the HP touchpad being sold off cheap due to the company canning the tablet, has uniquely highlighted that if you drop a tablet to a certain price point (albeit sub £100 which is seriously cheap) you get a surge in demand that way outstrips supply, the people, they want tablets. So what will that perfect balance and ultimately price be for Amazon?
Amazon to release two tablets?
The New York Post seems to think that the budget tablet option is a real goer for Amazon, we have already discussed the UK’s recent foray into the cut price tablet market with the Android based Andy Pad, a sub £130 tablet that promises to punch way above it’s weight and comes in two sizes and hence specifications. It would appear that the PC is well and truly under attack and that consumers will be getting their hands on a tablet sooner or later for much less money than they might have originally thought thanks to innovation and competition.
Could the smaller cut price tablet be a sub $200 tablet?
This is a tricky one as Amazon’s run away success in the Kindle is priced at such a point to be a much more care free purchase than anything in the hundreds of dollars. But at what point do you push the kindle market off the cliff by suggesting that a tablet is a more rounded option for only tens of dollars more? I think that the Amazon tablet will not quite be sub $200 straight away.
Sarah Rotman Epps analyst at Forresters is quoted saying:
“Amazon’s willingness to sell hardware at a loss combined with the strength of its brand, content, cloud infrastructure, and commerce assets makes it the only credible iPad competitor in the market. If Amazon launches a tablet at a sub-$300 price point — assuming it has enough supply to meet demand — we see Amazon selling 3-5 million tablets in Q4 alone.”
With Amazon likely to be able to monetize its tablet sales even further due to it’s Amazon app marketplace, it could be feasible that they could run at breakeven costs or even a small loss and make up revenues in netflix subscriptions and app sales etc.
Rumours also abound that Amazon have taken on a third manufacturer to meet its needs in building the units that Amazon have so far kept under wraps so well. For now it appears that Mr and Mrs gossip will have to keep you updated as regular as we possibly can via that dirty old grapevine and a little poetic licensing.
Anthony Munns