Now that the Amazon Kindle Fire is shipping and becoming very popular, the rumors about Amazon developing their own smartphone are flying around like crazy. Experts are predicting that this time next year we could see an Amazon smartphone. The information is coming from suppliers for the retail giant and indications would be that a smartphone should be ready by the holiday shopping season next year. Citigroup analyst, Mark Mahaney said that, “Based on our supply chain channel checks in Asia led by Kevin Chang, Citi’s Taipei-based hardware research analyst, we believe an Amazon Smartphone will be launched in 4Q12.”
Some more information has been leaked around the Web in a rumor fashion and includes the fact that Amazon is expected to partner with Foxxcon, which is Apple’s partner, and gets the components from Hon Hai TMS, which is already supplying Amazon with components for the Kindle. Mahaney also suggests that is also trying to put together what is going inside the new Amazon phone. The new smartphone has been called the “Kindle Phone” by some technology bloggers and other analysts. When it comes to what might be inside the phone, Mahaney suggests that it will run on a Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor and will likely be powered by the Android operating system, but neither of those have been confirmed.
It appears that cost to product, based on rumored components, is going to be in the $150 to $170 range. These rumored costs are under what the costs were associated with the iPhone 4S, so if and when the phone hits the market it should be priced more affordable than the iPhone.
If Amazon puts the amount of effort into a new smartphone as they did for the Kindle Fire, the phone will be a pretty sweet deal and knowing the production costs already, we can only hope it will cost less than the iPhone 4S. Amazon might have been one of the few companies to do the process backwords as typically the smartphones come out and the tablets followed, if the developing company was to launch one of each. The popularity of the Kindle Fire and all the benefits that come with it are going to keep Amazon fans very excited to see how it comes to market.
November 20, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Experts also said the Kindle Fire was a clone of the Blackberry Playbook, so much for the experts.