Amazon reportedly wants to make first smartphone offering free

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 54
    First, we don't know if any of this is true.

    Second, I can almost guarantee "free" is the wrong word. More than likely Amazon wants to use an alternate business model of some kind and need the carriers to help make it happe , and that's probably the hold up

    If Amazon was going to just give these away with no strings attached carriers would be all over it. A free smart phone means more subscribes and that's all carriers want.

    My guess is Amazon is looking to be an MVNO of sorts and handle the subscriptions themselves. Something like that and this would make sense.
  • Reply 22 of 54

    If it's free there's no way it will be without a contract.  Someone has to pay for the phone. Even if it costs $50 to make, Amazon isn't guaranteed to make that up from every person who would get one.

     

    This may be the way smartphones go considering that the tech in them is becoming more and more common year after year.

     

    Just so you know, I love both companies. They both have weaknesses and strengths.

  • Reply 23 of 54
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    masteric wrote: »
    Most likely "free", but on contract.

    That would be my guess.
  • Reply 24 of 54
    512ke512ke Posts: 782member

    2012 Amazon price to earnings ratio: 1,050!!!!!!!

     

    APPL sells a zillion phones and has a SLIGHTLY lower margin compared to 2008 = STOCK GOES DOWN!

     

    AMZN gives away their freaking product at a huge loss with negative margins = STOCK GOES UP

     

    Please please laws of gravity, logic, and rationality, resume.

  • Reply 25 of 54
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    ilm1997 wrote: »
    This sounds anticompetitive ... If Apple can't charge a little over than Amazon why does Amazon get to undercut all business and offer for free ?

    Apple can charge whatever they want just as long as everyone else can charge whatever they want.
  • Reply 26 of 54
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    512ke wrote: »
    2012 Amazon price to earnings ratio: 1,050!!!!!!!

    APPL sells a zillion phones and has a SLIGHTLY lower margin compared to 2008 = STOCK GOES DOWN!

    AMZN gives away their freaking product at a huge loss with negative margins = STOCK GOES UP

    Please please laws of gravity, logic, and rationality, resume.

    It's quite simple, what's up tends to go down and what's down can only go up. They don't care about what's happening now but what's going to happen. The potential to make a profit is more attractive than actually making a profit.
  • Reply 27 of 54

    I imagine this will "sell" quite well for people willing to live with the associated compromises. People never respect "free", but they will take it.

  • Reply 28 of 54
    murmanmurman Posts: 159member
    It's going to be using that browser that renders your page views at amazon, so it'll be slow hardware, and it'll only be available in a few countries, meaning US and maybe, who cares its going to be in two countries ... Ok China too ... in a few years time. People who can't afford flagship smartphones will eye this, it's a race to the bottom situation, if it succeeds, it will ruin business for everyone, including app developers, but its great for the low income consumers or even high income cheapskates.
  • Reply 29 of 54
    rickagrickag Posts: 1,626member
    quadra 610 wrote: »
    Ad-supported. 

    In-phone purchase ($699) to remove ads. 
    Sign me up. I take at least 100, my garage will be full.
  • Reply 30 of 54
    Baloney. This is all about getting the shysters to prop up the PPS. If it was easy to paint a few trucks with amazon's logo and claim a grocery delivery business is thriving and get CNBC to show pictures of the truck. This is even easier. Because this is nothing but vapor but will be worth another $50 per share move up for the bozos.
  • Reply 31 of 54
    Yes, and every 100th customer will receive a free unicorn.

    This attention-getting is the closest we'll ever see to a free Amazon smartphone. Amazon doesn't give away free Kindle epaper readers, even though they're inexpensive and only consume what Amazon sells. They're certainly not going to give away a smartphone that costs much more and that'll only incidentally generate other business for Amazon.
  • Reply 32 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ILM1997 View Post



    This sounds anticompetitive ... If Apple can't charge a little over than Amazon why does Amazon get to undercut all business and offer for free ?

     

    Because Amazon knows the DOJ has their back. /s

  • Reply 33 of 54

    It'll analyze your emails, search terms, websites, text messages and voice conversations, and make shopping recommendations, just for you. 

  • Reply 34 of 54
    Every Apple employee and iPhone user should just go grab the free one and then throw it in a drawer. Millions of free Amazon phones given away and not a dime in return for all those ads. That would stop this predatory pricing scheme of Amazon. Oh and the DOJ can bite me if they ignore this scheme which they probably will.
    Yes, go take them and throw them every where, use them as trash, and when you click the on button and you haft to remember your password it will be 10 sets of 3 advertisements, for every time you get it wrong you get 10 more (you memorize there color pattern to do it) and then when you click an app you wait for advertisement. Then when your playing a video or music you get 2 adds (1 before and one after) that corresponds. To answer a call your advertisement selection is just first 3. When you try to turn it off, it pops up to just 24 hour advertisements on the screen ran on a separate battery twice the capacity than the other one (in other words when plugged in it first charges that one then charges on board one with advertisements at that time and ads battery again, then if it dies it will repeat battery dead and advertisements on [same for just off] and that's how they make profit!!!
  • Reply 35 of 54

    Some of you are giving Amazon WAY too much credit.  Amazon won't strong arm anyone out of the market with this move.   As far as this being "anti-competitive", that's pretty ridiculous.  There have been free phones for years.   

     

    Apple isn't the one that needs to worry about this.  Samsung and LG have A LOT more to be worried about than Apple does.  People buy Apple with the mindset that it is a premium product or because they want iOS, but Samsung and LG make cheap Android smartphones that carriers give away or sell for $50 with contract.  This Amazon phone would go for the jugular in that niche of cheap phones.  

     

    If Amazon does this it is an act of desperation and a last ditch effort to scoop up a piece of the mobile market.  Amazon has seen Microsoft and Blackberry both struggle to get a foothold against Apple and Samsung, so they are willing to try something radical.  Still, making something free is no guarantee of anything.

     

    ....except for A LOT of attention.

  • Reply 36 of 54
    I think this will be offered "free" to everyone who spends at least $500 per year on Amazon listed products... and more probably non-physical items such as e-books and music files.
  • Reply 37 of 54
    UNICEF gives away free bags of rice. It's like that.
  • Reply 38 of 54
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member

    Here's how it can work. You get the Amazon smartphone for free, but the only way to get voice minutes and data time on it is to buy them through Amazon. But you don't have to buy blocks of minutes and data time directly, though you could and it may be expensive. Amazon will give you "Smartphone points" with every purchase made. Much like the old days of "Blue Chip Stamps". They can offer double or triple points on certain high margin items or items they want to clear out. "Smartphone points" can be redeemed for voice or data time at different rates and as needed. Not only that, the points you earn on an Amazon VISA card can also be used to buy "Smartphone points". And everything is hassle free. The phone is tied to your Amazon account, so you never have to replace sim cards or even plug your phone into a computer to add the minutes and data time. Just log on to your Amazon account and add the time needed with your accumulated "Smartphone points".

     

    This may not be a cheap way to own a smartphone if you need a lot of minutes and data. But if you're not a heavy smartphone user, you're already spending a couple of thousand dollars a year at Amazon and also use an Amazon VISA card, then it could truly mean a free smartphone. Or at the least an inexpensive way of owning one.

  • Reply 39 of 54
    Well, if the phone is free, big deal. There are free phones available now on contract. But if the cellular service is free, that is real news. It is hard to imagine carriers going along with that--ever. It would completely destroy their business model.
    Amazon could still start their own MVNO operation and do whatever they want. That would still leave the problem of how you make enough money with such an arrangement. Bezos seems to have a reality distortion field in the area of profit and loss, but this would be asking a lot of the old RDF.
  • Reply 40 of 54
    Like the saying: I can't afford cheap shoes, similarly... I can't afford a free phone.
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