Kindle Fire already headed for No. 2 in the tablet biz
“Nearly two years after Apple Inc. rolled out the iPad, a competitor has finally developed an alternative which looks like it might have enough of Apple’s secret sauce to succeed,” said IHS analyst Rhoda Alexander.
The Kindle Fire was largely helped by its more affordable price tag, significantly undercutting most other tablets. Amazon has an advantage because it can sell the product at a loss or minimal profit and make it up later by selling products and services through the device.
Looks like Amazon has a hit on their hands. It seems that price is more important than performance for a lot of consumers that are interested in purchasing a tablet. The Kindle Fire received pretty mediocre to downright scathing reviews when it was released, but that hasn’t seemed to hurt it.
The important point is this - the only non-iPad tablets that are actually selling well are the ones that are being sold at a loss. Amazon is probably the only company out there that can afford to do this and actually succeed in the long term, since it can recoup losses with content sales. This does not bode well for all of the other tablet manufacturers out there.