The Kindle Fire 7 inch color touchscreen tablet that sold so well during the 2011 holiday shopping season doesn’t appear to have cooled down in popularity. Arriving with a $199 retail price that was $150 to $400 less than the best-selling tablets when it was released, it met with immediate sales success and popularity. And though Amazon may have missed their Q4 estimates set by Wall Street analysts, the Kindle Fire still remains a hot item for online shoppers.
Buy the Kindle Fire for $199.
In a recent survey conducted by ChangeWave Research, a full 6% of over 2,600 North American consumers polled claimed ownership of the Kindle Fire, with 38% claiming to be satisfied with their purchase, and an additional 54% claiming they were “very satisfied” with the device. That gives the initial Amazon tablet offering a 92% approval rating. The best-selling Apple iPad lineup secured a 74% approval rating from consumers surveyed by ChangeWave in November.
According to Strategy Analytics, the popularity across all demographics of the Kindle Fire tablet has helped boost market share for all Android tablets to 39%, up from 29% a year ago. Breaking down the approval of the Kindle Fire tablet discovered by the ChangeWave survey, 59% of Kindle Fire owners said that they were most appreciative of the cost of the device in relation to what it delivers. 31% claimed that the visual display on the color screen was their most appreciated feature, and more than 3 out of 10 Kindle Fire owners said they will be making purchases on the tablet over the next three months, compared with only 19% of non-Kindle Fire owners.
Amazon’s pricing model has always been to release their proprietary hardware at a small loss or breakeven price point, counting on years of purchases of their high-margin low-cost digital content to provide their profits. The Amazon Kindle Fire delivers instant access to streaming movies and television shows, applications, electronic books and tons of other digital content and services. RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler believes that each Kindle Fire will make Amazon approximately $136 from content purchases over the life of the device.
The Kindle Fire has in approximately 4 months time done what every other tablet manufacturer has failed to do, in solidly securing the number two spot in the tablet marketplace. Their $199 tablet has single-handedly turned the retail pricing structure of the tablet marketplace on its ear, forcing its competitors to rethink their pricing strategy. Buy the Kindle Fire tablet for $199.
