I'm sticking a finger in the wind and saying ~10m, or on that order of magnitude, give or take a couple million.
I've also seen elsewhere the claim that Amazon shifts four times as many ebooks as Apple, which would be the more interesting number, since both Kindle Fires and iPads are used for much more than reading. It wasn't sourced, but I'm trying to find more info on that.
Any evidence for the claim that there are more people buying the iPad as an ebook reader than there are buying the Kindle?
I don't see it. If I see anyone reading a book on a tablet sized device anywhere it's always a Kindle. Not that I don't see iPads, there's loads of them too, but they're being used for games, or movies, or email, or web. But rarely reading books, which is understandable, as they're not that good at it. Kindles (not the Fire versions) are still much better than iPad for reading. And most estimates put them approaching 10m sold per annum, which are very decent numbers.
I have to agree with you, though I have a Kindle HDX (for magazines, podcasts and Spotify ), I use my Nook GlowLight for reading. Not only is the screen more comfortable for reading but I only have to recharge the Nook once every month, even when the battery level indicator reads less then 5%, I can still get a day or two out of it, crazy. It's also extremely light, in comparison to the iPad Mini Air which weighs almost three times as much. Not to mention that this thing is pretty much indestructible. I originally bought the Nook because it was the only device that the hospital I stayed in would allow in their Intensive Care unit but it won me over. So before you jump all over me for suggesting that the iPad has any sort of weakness, just saying for the single purpose of reading an eBook I would rather use a Kindle or Nook as well. Though it is rooted and in no way a speed demon, it runs these programs fairly well too; Gmail, Gdrive, QuickOffice, OutLook, OneDrive, OneNote, Office and Opera.
It seems you have had time to re-read Adam Smith's 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'. Your under-grad professors would be impressed !! Remember though that Smith's earlier work 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' is a more seminal work worthy of a re-raed also and would have greater application the scenario you paint.
For the rest of you reading this post and have no friggin idea what this all about, DuckDuckGo 'Adam Smith', grab a good long coffee and settle down for a good read...
I thought his piece was more of a satirical take on Marx.
In the longer term I don't see why people would push cell technology as opposed to having some other wireless solution which didn't require towers everywhere. Heck, even a WiFi "phone" makes more sense to me.
Apple needs to do something to stop Amazon. Through government stupidity or collusion, Amazon is given a blank check to maintain its monopoly over books, ebooks in particular, and more and more over other products. Music and movies are still competitive.
Amazon can certainly afford to push, these products, though they may not prove to be at the level of quality of Apple. They may eventually get it right.
I'll be upfront and say that most of you guys just don't get it; you don't understand why Amazon would build a phone to begin with, and so you try to frame it in terms that you can understand, which is direct competition with Apple.
The question is not why Amazon would want to sell a phone. The question is why anyone would want to buy it.
I've also seen elsewhere the claim that Amazon shifts four times as many ebooks as Apple, which would be the more interesting number, since both Kindle Fires and iPads are used for much more than reading. It wasn't sourced, but I'm trying to find more info on that.
The Nexus phones are worse than the premium smartphones from HTC, LG and Samsung because they run stock Android and have boring hardware. So, of course, no one but Google fanboys buy them: they lack the very thing that makes Android devices interesting in the first place, which is customizing the OS and trying out various hardware configurations. (Note: by this I mean interesting to people who like Android, which would obviously preclude nearly all Apple devotees.)
So if the Amazon phone is no better than a Nexus phone while costing more than several flagship Android phones, it really has no chance.
And yes, it is further proof still that this column is totally off base.
Customers are listening to Amazon. I was in a liquor store Saturday and overheard a group of people talking about Amazon's drone delivery service. I was amazed that they were interested in it. The Fire Phone on AT&T might sell better than people here are willing to accept.
People are also interested in jet packs and hover boards. Let us know the minute Google brings any of these to market.
Wait what, that makes absolutely zero sense, are you actually insinuating that people who buy from Amazon only do so because they can buy cheap hardware.
That's actually great news, MayDay is pretty fantastic, revolutionizes customer service. Now I don't have one of these FIre Phone's, nor would I ever want one but I do have a Kindle HDX. Even though I hate, hate FIreOS and have replaced it with a custom launcher, the one feature that I think every gadget in the world should have is MayDay.
That's really insightful. Maybe Amazon should just sell MayDay as a standalone product.
That's also not accurate, say what you want about FireOS but there is absolutely nothing cheap about Amazons hardware, the Kindle HDX for example has a Qualcomm 800, 2GB RAM, 1080P display for the 7 inch and an amazing resolution of 2560 x 1600 for the 8 inch, the build quality is probably the best I've ever seen for an Android tablet.
Well according to 9to5Mac, Apple is rumored to be rolling out something similar this fall.
That's actually great news, MayDay is pretty fantastic, revolutionizes customer service. Now I don't have one of these FIre Phone's, nor would I ever want one but I do have a Kindle HDX. Even though I hate, hate FIreOS and have replaced it with a custom launcher, the one feature that I think every gadget in the world should have is MayDay.
Getting Kindle sales numbers certainly isn't the easiest task, which is why I said estimates.
Seeking Alpha says ...
Among all the inaccurate and unreliable sources of information out there, Seeking Alpha is near the bottom. Anyone can get a piece published on that site.
Throughout 2010, Android rapidly began replacing all the other low end "smartphone" platforms, quickly convincing the world's tech media that it would just as quickly destroy Apple's iOS, thereby reestablishing the glorious technology monoculture they fondly remembered during the rule of Microsoft's Windows. But that never happened.
Apple's market share of all phones sold has only gone up since 2007, ...
This is half right.
- Desktop Windows never established a complete OS "monoculture" because the Mac OS never disappeared. Windows just had a dominant monopoly.
- And that is what is happening with Google Android and smartphones. Android now has about 79% smartphone OS marketshare.
But like Windows on the desktop, the Apple alternative has not disappeared.
As for iOS gaining marketshare since 2007. Sure, that's right since iOS started with zero marketshare in 2007.
Apple's share of the phone market has gone up every year since it came out in 2007.
I'll be upfront and say that most of you guys just don't get it; you don't understand why Amazon would build a phone to begin with, and so you try to frame it in terms that you can understand, which is direct competition with Apple. But Bezos isn't trying to compete with Apple. Bezos isn't trying to steal Apple's lunch (yet), or even grab the pickle off their burger.
Bezos is optimizing Amazon's business, which is in essence the argument leveled in this piece, minus all the Apple worship.
Kindle is an excellent case in point. Although just about everyone here is quick to dismiss Kindle tablets, when you look at the real numbers, it's easy to see why Bezos and company think they are a grand idea. Kindle tablets are estimated to own about 7 - 8% of the market, which is not as insignificant as everyone here would like to imagine. It is higher, for example, than those guys up in Redmond. Still it is a number that is obviously no threat to Apple. But it may interest you to know that this seemingly insignificant 7 - 8 percent number has helped fuel 21% quarterly growth of Amazon's sales of media (video, books, and other content). So that small 7 - 8 percent market share is driving almost 90% growth YOY of Amazon's content business, which is not at all shabby, and which more than justifies Amazon's approach. And that business presently accounts for almost 8 billion dollars in annual revenue. Map that number out with 1 or two years of continued 90% growth and it is not very hard to understand why Amazon is committed to their technology strategy. Promoting their ecosystem is a huge plus for Amazon's business.
So against that, the sane question to ask is why wouldn't Amazon want to build a phone? It is tailor made to drive the company's core business, and that is I might add not a shred different from how Apple uses the halo effect of their hardware to drive other aspects of their business.
FYI, it is estimated that grabbing just 3% of the Android phone market could net Amazon an additional $5 billion in annual revenues. That's not chump change.
People don't understand how Bezos approaches things; he has a horizon of 5 to 10 years when it comes to business strategy, and it is a core value for him that he is willing to be misunderstood for a very long time, which is essentially what most of you are doing; you misunderstand what Bezos is up to and you all too quickly dismiss it.
Amazon has built probably the best cloud services infrastructure in the world, which is quite surprising for a company everyone sees as a retailer. But to clue you in on how good AWS is, it is the backbone for many successful tech companies, including Netflix, Adobe, Expedia, Pinterest, and more. As a matter of fact, AWS just won a major CIA contract, and beat out IBM to do it. Which serves, in many ways, as a testimony.
Amazon has also built an advertising and data harvesting enterprise that significantly exceeds that of competitors such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and which directly challenges Google in many ways.
Amazon competes directly against Netflix for streaming video, and quite well.
Amazon competes against Google and Apple for video and music content sales.
Amazon is a gargantuan retailer competing against almost everyone.
Amazon just built a payment processing service to compete against Paypal and others.
And I could go on.
My point is that there is a much bigger picture here than simply hawking phones, and I think that most of you laughing about the phone completely miss that very big picture; you don't see the many strategic ways in which selling a phone is a strong plus for Amazon's business, even if it never even comes close to challenging Apple in any way.
Comments
Getting Kindle sales numbers certainly isn't the easiest task, which is why I said estimates.
Seeking Alpha says ~20m, including the Fires: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2084763-estimating-the-value-of-kindle-hardware-sales-for-amazon
BusinessWeek said ~8m in 2010, before the Fire was released: http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/kindle-sales-figures-leak-beats-analyst-estimates-by-60/
I'm sticking a finger in the wind and saying ~10m, or on that order of magnitude, give or take a couple million.
I've also seen elsewhere the claim that Amazon shifts four times as many ebooks as Apple, which would be the more interesting number, since both Kindle Fires and iPads are used for much more than reading. It wasn't sourced, but I'm trying to find more info on that.
Any evidence for the claim that there are more people buying the iPad as an ebook reader than there are buying the Kindle?
I don't see it. If I see anyone reading a book on a tablet sized device anywhere it's always a Kindle. Not that I don't see iPads, there's loads of them too, but they're being used for games, or movies, or email, or web. But rarely reading books, which is understandable, as they're not that good at it. Kindles (not the Fire versions) are still much better than iPad for reading. And most estimates put them approaching 10m sold per annum, which are very decent numbers.
I have to agree with you, though I have a Kindle HDX (for magazines, podcasts and Spotify ), I use my Nook GlowLight for reading. Not only is the screen more comfortable for reading but I only have to recharge the Nook once every month, even when the battery level indicator reads less then 5%, I can still get a day or two out of it, crazy. It's also extremely light, in comparison to the iPad Mini Air which weighs almost three times as much. Not to mention that this thing is pretty much indestructible. I originally bought the Nook because it was the only device that the hospital I stayed in would allow in their Intensive Care unit but it won me over. So before you jump all over me for suggesting that the iPad has any sort of weakness, just saying for the single purpose of reading an eBook I would rather use a Kindle or Nook as well. Though it is rooted and in no way a speed demon, it runs these programs fairly well too; Gmail, Gdrive, QuickOffice, OutLook, OneDrive, OneNote, Office and Opera.
Hey Daniel,
It seems you have had time to re-read Adam Smith's 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'. Your under-grad professors would be impressed !! Remember though that Smith's earlier work 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' is a more seminal work worthy of a re-raed also and would have greater application the scenario you paint.
For the rest of you reading this post and have no friggin idea what this all about, DuckDuckGo 'Adam Smith', grab a good long coffee and settle down for a good read...
I thought his piece was more of a satirical take on Marx.
In the longer term I don't see why people would push cell technology as opposed to having some other wireless solution which didn't require towers everywhere. Heck, even a WiFi "phone" makes more sense to me.
We already have one. It's called the iPod Touch.
If only Apple took it seriously. It still has an underclocked A5 processor, right?
Amazon can certainly afford to push, these products, though they may not prove to be at the level of quality of Apple. They may eventually get it right.
I'll be upfront and say that most of you guys just don't get it; you don't understand why Amazon would build a phone to begin with, and so you try to frame it in terms that you can understand, which is direct competition with Apple.
The question is not why Amazon would want to sell a phone. The question is why anyone would want to buy it.
As is instant and seamless access to their content purchased through Amazon.
Aside from ebooks, Amazon's content selection sucks.
I've also seen elsewhere the claim that Amazon shifts four times as many ebooks as Apple, which would be the more interesting number, since both Kindle Fires and iPads are used for much more than reading. It wasn't sourced, but I'm trying to find more info on that.
If Apple's own numbers are reliable, then it looks like it's probably more like Amazon sell 2-3 times as many as Apple: http://gigaom.com/2013/06/12/apple-we-have-20-percent-of-the-u-s-ebook-market/
I'd still say that douses the idea that the iPad is the iPod of the ebooks market pretty thoroughly.
First serious review of this phone from the Android community: it is worse than the Google Nexus 5.:
http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/06/phone-comparisons-amazon-fire-phone-vs-google-nexus-5.html
The Nexus phones are worse than the premium smartphones from HTC, LG and Samsung because they run stock Android and have boring hardware. So, of course, no one but Google fanboys buy them: they lack the very thing that makes Android devices interesting in the first place, which is customizing the OS and trying out various hardware configurations. (Note: by this I mean interesting to people who like Android, which would obviously preclude nearly all Apple devotees.)
So if the Amazon phone is no better than a Nexus phone while costing more than several flagship Android phones, it really has no chance.
And yes, it is further proof still that this column is totally off base.
Customers are listening to Amazon. I was in a liquor store Saturday and overheard a group of people talking about Amazon's drone delivery service. I was amazed that they were interested in it. The Fire Phone on AT&T might sell better than people here are willing to accept.
People are also interested in jet packs and hover boards. Let us know the minute Google brings any of these to market.
Wait what, that makes absolutely zero sense, are you actually insinuating that people who buy from Amazon only do so because they can buy cheap hardware.
He was referring to cheap tablets.
That's actually great news, MayDay is pretty fantastic, revolutionizes customer service. Now I don't have one of these FIre Phone's, nor would I ever want one but I do have a Kindle HDX. Even though I hate, hate FIreOS and have replaced it with a custom launcher, the one feature that I think every gadget in the world should have is MayDay.
That's really insightful. Maybe Amazon should just sell MayDay as a standalone product.
That's also not accurate, say what you want about FireOS but there is absolutely nothing cheap about Amazons hardware, the Kindle HDX for example has a Qualcomm 800, 2GB RAM, 1080P display for the 7 inch and an amazing resolution of 2560 x 1600 for the 8 inch, the build quality is probably the best I've ever seen for an Android tablet.
You're setting a high bar for quality there, lol.
That or a helpful son.
Earth.
Getting Kindle sales numbers certainly isn't the easiest task, which is why I said estimates.
Seeking Alpha says ...
Among all the inaccurate and unreliable sources of information out there, Seeking Alpha is near the bottom. Anyone can get a piece published on that site.
Apple's share of the phone market has gone up every year since it came out in 2007.
You obviously missed the WWDC.
CloudKit has decimated AWS.