Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Amazon's Kindle Fire blazed new trails over the holidays - ConsumerAffairs

Photo If you fired up a new Kindle Fire over the holidays, you were in good company – so did millions of others. A report by the analytics firm Flurry says Kindle Fire activa tion on Christmas Day were 24 times the average for the first three weeks of December.

Apple and Samsung devices both turned in the low single-digit gains. Apple was overpriced outpaced into laptop sales, with Google Chromebook sales quadrupling During the first 11 months of the year.

What do the Fire and the Chromebook have in common? That’s right – low price. The Kindle starts at $ 139 for the 7-inch model and you can pick up a Chromebook for $ 199.

In both cases, the devices are basically gateways to the goods and services Their manufacturers are selling. Amazon sells the books, movies, music and thou sands of other products That you can buy and, in some cases, consume through the Fire.

Ditto with the Chromebook. It exposes you to all things Google – ads, a social network, books, movies, music … well, you get that idea.

Of course, Apple has iTunes but its mercantile activities pale beside its Competitors and it shows in the price of Apple’s products. A MacBook Pro will set you back $ 1.400 or so and an iPad fetches $ 400 or more, Depending on size and configuration.

class=”c1″> “ Amazon sells the Kindle tablets at cost , putting them within the Christmas budgets of more people than some other devices. The reason Amazon sells tablets at cost Is that They are a channel for was promoting physical goods and was promoting and delivering digital content, “stated a blogpost today by Mary Ellen Gordon, Flurry’s head of research.

Amazon is stingy with sales information but said last week That it sold “millions” of Kindle devices During the holiday season. The Cyber ??Monday shopping weekend was the best ever for the Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers. While impressive, its 24-fold Increase in Christmas activa tion was down from 40-fold and 35-fold gains in each of the prior two years.

However, it Should be noted That in the overall tablet market, Amazon does not come close to challenging the share of Apple or Samsung, Which had about 30% and 20%, respectively, of the market as of the third quarter , According To an IDC estimate.

The most likely interpretation of That statistic Is that we’re willing to cheap out When buying presents But when the gift is for ourselves, we’ll stick with the higher-end merchandise.

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