By Brad Stone and Danielle Kucera - Sep 29, 2011 3:14 AM GMT+0700
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Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., introduces the new Kindle Fire tablet computer at a news conference in New York on Sept. 28, 2011. Photographer: Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg Businessweek's Brad Stone talks about Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire tablet computer unveiled today. The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display, run on Google Inc.’s Android software and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad. Stone speaks with Lisa Murphy on Bloomberg Television's "Fast Forward." (Source: Bloomberg)
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Chris Cunningham, co-founder of Appssavvy, talks about Amazon.com Inc.'s business strategy. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet computer, taking aim at Apple Inc.’s bestselling iPad with a device that’s smaller and less than half the price. Cunningham speaks with Carol Massar and Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg)
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., talks about Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire tablet computer and the outlook for sales. The world's largest online retailer today unveiled the Kindle Fire, taking aim at Apple Inc.'s bestselling iPad with a device that's smaller and less than half the price. Mahaney speaks with Emily Chang and Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Greg Harper, president and founder of Harpervision Associates Inc., talks about the outlook for Amazon.com Inc.'s new Kindle and its ability to compete with Apple Inc.'s iPad. Harper speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Wired magazine writer Steven Levy talks about Amazon.com Inc.'s new Kindle Fire table computer and the company's competition with Apple Inc. He speaks with Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)
Amazon.com Inc. unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet computer, taking aim at Apple Inc.’s bestselling iPad with a device that’s smaller and less than half the price. Source: Amazon.com Inc. via Bloomberg
Jeff Bezos, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., speaks during a news conference in New York. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), the world’s largest online retailer, unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet computer, taking aim at Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s bestselling iPad with a device that’s smaller and less than half the price.
The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek. The device, a souped-up version of the Kindle electronic-book reader, will run on Google Inc.’s Android software, the Seattle-based company said. Amazon also introduced a touch-screen version of its e-reader, to be called Kindle Touch.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is betting he can harness Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce to pose a real challenge to Apple’s iPad, after tablets from rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Research In Motion Ltd. have fallen short. Sales of Amazon’s electronic books, movies and music on the device may help make up for the narrower profit margins that are likely to result from the low price, said Brian Blair, an analyst at Wedge Partners Corp. in New York.
“Amazon is really the only other guy, the only other potential tablet player, that has a similar offering to what Apple has,” Blair said in an interview last week. “If you look across their product offerings, they have content that none of the other tablet makers currently have because they have content on the media side.”
IPad Appeal
While the Kindle Fire can vie with the iPad in access to media content, it lacks a camera, microphone or a connection to a 3G wireless network. It may not appeal to consumers who are drawn to the iPad’s larger screen and willing to pay a premium for added features such as video chat.
“The Amazon tablet is not necessarily a direct competitor to the iPad,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. in San Francisco, in a telephone interview. Another version of the Kindle may debut next year with more features to directly compete with Apple, he said. Right now, “the price point is the headline rather than the functionality.”
Starting today, customers can order the new tablet, as well as a basic version of the Kindle e-reader for $79 and two new touch-screen readers, one for $99 and another for $149 that has 3G wireless access. The lowest-priced Kindle can ship today, the tablet will go out Nov. 15, and touch-screen readers will be released Nov. 21, Amazon said.
Shares Rise
Amazon’s shares rose $5.50, or 2.5 percent, to $229.71 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has increased 28 percent this year.
Apple fell $2.25 to $397.01. Shares of Barnes & Noble Inc., maker of the Nook e-reader, declined 91 cents, or 6.9 percent, to $12.30 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Kindle Fire offers Wi-Fi connectivity and comes with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, the company’s $79-a-year membership service that includes streaming video and free two- day shipping. A web browser called Amazon Silk will use so- called cloud computing to speed access to content over the Internet. The tablet will be available on Amazon’s website and at retailers that already sell the Kindle e-readers.
Amazon has painted over the rough surfaces of Google’s Android operating system with a fresh and easy-to-use interface and tied the device closely to its own large and growing content library of movies, magazines and music. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc. predicts the tablet market will grow 51 percent a year through 2015.
Sales Potential
While the new Kindle will add to Amazon’s sales, estimated by analysts to rise 32 percent to $64.6 billion in 2012, the company may disappoint if the tablet doesn’t bring in revenue quickly, Steve Weinstein, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon, said in a note this week.
Consumer reaction to the device will play a “critical” role in the company’s growth, he said. Analysts on average predict Amazon’s gross margin, a measure of profitability, will fall to 22.17 percent in 2012 from 22.35 percent last year, according to a Bloomberg survey. Gross margin is the percentage of sales left after subtracting production costs.
“Without success in tablets, investor growth expectations for 2012 could prove too aggressive,” Weinstein said Sept. 26.
Apple started selling the original iPad in April 2010, and introduced the iPad 2 in March of this year. The touch-screen device, which has a 9.7-inch diagonal display, is already Apple’s biggest source of revenue after the iPhone. The company shipped 9.25 million iPads in the quarter that ended June 25.
Mobile Applications
Apple also leads the market for mobile applications, with more than 425,000. Over 100,000 of those apps are custom- designed for the iPad.
Two other tablets have failed to make a dent in Apple’s dominance so far. Research In Motion Ltd.’s PlayBook, introduced in the second quarter, shipped 200,000 units, less than half of what analysts predicted. Analysts had already cut estimates for full-year PlayBook shipments to an average of 2.2 million, according to a Bloomberg survey.
Hewlett-Packard Co., meanwhile, discontinued its TouchPad in August -- only about a month after its debut. And Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software maker, may not have its Windows operating system for tablets ready until next year.
The iPad accounted for 68 percent of all tablets shipped worldwide in the second quarter, according to Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm IDC. Other Android-based tablets, including models from Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., accounted for 27 percent.
While Amazon has the clout and the content to take on Apple, the company will have to go beyond the tablet released today to be a serious competitor, Blair said.
“I don’t actually believe 7-inch is going to be a viable tablet for anybody,” he said. “It’s a ‘tweener. A real tablet offering has got to be a 10-inch screen.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Brad Stone at bstone12@bloomberg.net; Danielle Kucera in San Francisco at dkucera6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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