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September 09, 2013

Amazon Denies Free Phone Rumors

The smartphone space can be cruel to unprepared new entrants; remember the ill-fated ‘Facebook phone,’ the HTC First? Despite solid manufacturing from HTC and the power of Facebook behind it, the First could barely sell, even when it was discounted to 99 cents. Regardless of the circumstances, the First serves as quite the lesson for any company looking to enter a market dominated by Apple and Samsung.

With that in mind, it’s not too surprising that Amazon has denied rumors that it is planning to launch its own smartphone this year. In fact, the company said it doesn’t have plans to launch a phone at all currently.

The rumor that Amazon was planning to make its own smartphone came from former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessice E. Lessin, who stated that not only was Amazon planning to enter the smartphone market, it would do so with a free device. The company also denied this, saying that if it ever does decide to launch a phone, it won’t be free.

The idea of a free smartphone may seem silly, but it’s not as outlandish as one might assume. To start with, Amazon is already well-known for producing high-quality, low-cost mobile devices — namely the tablets that make up its Kindle Fire line — usually offsetting a low sticker price with advertising. Second, Amazon does have a decent ecosystem available, putting it in a better position than Microsoft and BlackBerry in terms of apps.

But then, of course, there’s the competition present in the smartphone space. Apple and Samsung aside, Google’s Nexus 4 is likely an intimidating presence for Amazon. In fact, critics of the HTC First often invoked Google’s current smartphone offering to question the need for a device like the First; after all, the Nexus 4 offers excellent usability at a low price, while offering a pure Android experience.

This is likely a major factor in why Amazon has no interest in the smartphone space, since any phone it released would likely be even more heavily modified on a software level than the HTC First. That said, Facebook denied any interest in launching a smartphone almost right up until the launch of the First. Who knows what the future may bring?




Edited by Alisen Downey


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