Amazon has sold no more than 35,000 Fire phones, data suggests
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I'm just really seriously confused by what they were thinking here.
It is almost like seeing one of those "fail" videos where a kid piledrives his friend off the roof into the backyard and both kids end up badly injured -- of course that was the end result, there was no reasonably plausible path from the starting point to any sort of non-failure ending.
[1] Lab126 is Amazon's hardware arm that makes these phones.
In the future, I think Amazon still may have a shot at producing a decent phone at a reasonable price.
Hell, I just bought a Galaxy Nexus (from Amazon) to replace the LG G2 that I broke (didn't feel like spending $600). In spite of its age, its hands-down a better phone than the G2. If they get the form-factor and the software right, there are lots of people who won't even care if the CPU isn't the latest and greatest iteration.
My friend still has his GN phone from its original launch and carries 2 extra batteries with him at all times (he's a real estate broker so he needs to always be available via phone)
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/portable-devices/other-devi...
I do the same thing, deliberately have a phone that has user-swappable batteries. Why? I can insert a second battery that is fully charged instead of having to plug in the external battery (along with keeping track of the charging cable) and let it charge the internal battery. As a nice side bonus, I can also buy batteries which are larger than the stock battery. My Galaxy S4 GPE has aftermarket batteries available (mine is from Anker) that are essentially two stock batteries strapped together, or 5200mAh of capacity versus 2600mAh stock. Yes, the phone gets one "battery height" thicker but having two solid days of my normal use is outstanding.
The irony of the cigarette lighter outlet in a modern car is that it's not likely to be used for its original purpose, but it won't disappear from cars because it's a convenient way to charge a small electronic device.
Maybe in your bubble.
I wouldn't buy one without at least two of those.
I subscribe to a car-sharing service that uses exclusively Volvos and they all have USB ports. And the cigarette lighters are marked "12V" instead of "cigarette lighter". I can see the 12V ports disappearing in favor of USB in a couple years.
It's also worth noting that an adapter that connects the 12v in any car to a USB outlet can be had for less than $10 on Amazon.
(So, I'm old - can you even get these anymore?)
But as a real estate agent, he is probably leveraging other uses from his smartphone that would make this an unattractive option. I guess it would either be carry a smartphone and a feature phone, or a smartphone with some spare batteries.
In between the $99 Note 3 and the $650 Amazon phone there's an entire universe of better phones.
While there's some cool software included with it, I honestly don't think any of the things on show are killer features worthy of the price difference. The main special feature appears to be a "identify this item" which is basically what the amazon app on android already does, except now there's a dedicated button for it.
Do people really walk around identifying items for purchase to comparison shop on Amazon so often a dedicated button needs to be built into the device?
Oh I didn't even know that was a feature. That actually sounds pretty cool to me. I know it's not a strong user behavior at the moment, but plenty of people price shop in brick and mortar stores (I certianly do it every time I'm at Best Buy, but it's just to get Best Buy to price match with Amazon), but maybe if (a) the phone comes down in price and (b) they offer some kind of brownie on top of the feature (like a N% discount over the brick and mortar store's matched price with Amazon, if you physically scan an item and the phone detects via GPS that you're at a storefront?), maybe it can slowly tide people over and change user behavior.
The thing with Skroutz is that you know the shipping cost is about 2 to 4 EUR. But with Amazon you can't tell how much the shipping cost might be, from Amazon-UK/FR/DE/IT to GR.
Very annoying.
Which, along with similar comments I see on nearly every US-focused tech site, leads me to conclude that basically no-one in the US knows how much phones cost, not even literate techies of the kind that hang out on HN.
My best guess as to why Amazon thought they could sell a ho-hum phone for $650 dollars is therefore: to a large degree no-one in the US knows or cares how much their phone costs so reducing the price has little to no impact on sales.
But it's worse than that. Many Americans are such complete consumers that they'll pick the higher-priced item solely because it has a higher price, "reasoning" that, if it has a higher price, then it must have a higher value.
App stores and the rush to freemium with IAPs are a counter to your point.
There's like a $10/mo discount buying the phone then bringing it to VZ to use. At a $600 difference in price (vs. $99 on contract), you can't make the difference up with a $240 reduction in service cost.
So yeah, technically you're right, it's $99 with a 2 year contract, the problem is that people do know what these devices actually cost. Hell, you can look them up on Amazon and ebay while you're in the store and the sales reps will even help you do it. It's just not always cheaper to roll your own.
The problem with Amazon's phone is that when you go phone shopping you just don't see one in the phone stores. If they can only be bought off contract, your effective price for the phone is still north of $400, at least on Verizon. Not even the latest iPhone or Galaxy <whatever> sells in that price range on contract.
If the 2-year development timeframe is correct, one can see how Amazon couldn't even have thought of FFOS as an alternative, but now, FFOS is slowly but surely getting there. If Amazon uses it's engineering chops to advance FFOS – and I am sure that a lot of developers at Amazon will be happy to contribute to FFOS too – perhaps they could compete with Android and iOS?
Given that Firefox OS apps written in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript should run just as well on Android and iOS, anyone actually wanting to use such apps is better off just getting an Android or an iOS device. That way they can run the Firefox OS apps, as well as all of the other apps that Android or iOS support.
But more people chose Firefox OS than Amazon so far.
It's just a tool, so I give it an objective, unemotional analysis. That analysis shows that it lacks the features and functionality that are needed for it to be a useful tool for the vast, vast majority of users.
Most people use a phone for practical reasons, not ideological ones. They don't care how "open" it may be if it doesn't run the apps they need or want to use. Firefox OS will have no chance of succeeding in the long run as long as it continues to provide a sub-par user experience.
Is a Firefox OS device on sale in any US retail store? I've never even talked with another person that had heard of Firefox OS. How could you possibly know that customers don't want it?
I've never even talked with another
person that had heard of Firefox OS.
How could you possibly know that
customers don't want it?
Me: Hey, did you know you can get a smartphone for $33?
Them: Cool! That sounds great, and $66 cheaper than my iPhone.
Me: Yeah, that would totally pay for 3 weeks of your cell phone bill.
Them: Sounds good, so I can get Instagram on it, right?
Me: Yep, except you won't be able to post photos.
Them: Oh. How about Flappy Bird.
Me: Nope, sorry.
Them: Darn, but that's ok. Too addictive. How about Uber, Whatsapp, and Facebook?
Me: Totally! Mobile web all the way, baby! HTML 5!
Them: Awesome!
<2 Weeks Pass>
Them: I went back to my iPhone. Those mobile websites suck.
Though I would really love it if you could show me where to get a $99 iPhone.
I dont know why anyone would want these phones.
And you know, makes sense branding-wise. A Fire phone runs Firefox!
It just goes to show, even the big boys make things nobody wants.
[1] That's why I love HN anyway.
If their phone were a book, it would cost about twice as much as barnes and noble, and take 8 months to arrive, and wouldn't be any more convenient. So that's fairly mystifying.
The convenience factor is the strangest aspect of this phone. How are they making the ordering, delivery, and activation phase more convenient than a competitor like republic wireless? Oh they aren't. Well then.
So... I've heard the top down of why they're doing a phone, but whats the bottom up of why they're shipping something that is almost the opposite of the amazon brand?
Its not really an Amazon Phone. Its just a crappy overpriced underspec'd phone that happens to be sold by Amazon.
It would have made more sense (at least as a way of putting the foot into the door) to release a cheap, decently specced phone, which would have leveraged on Amazon services to subsidise the price, with strong client apps for kindle, video streaming, and the main Amazon shop.
Hasn't Amazon built their empire with the high volume/thin margins mantra ?
Really weird, and out of "character" for Amazon.
But I think they knew all this. It starts the water flowing for them to get into the game. they have staying power, and over time, could start gaining market share. It's a long play, like most of Bezo's moves. The phone is really a just going to be part of the AMZN ecosystem too - they'll start lumping services on it for prime members, etc.
The fact that Amazon has a separate store really ticked me off. Lots of apps I was used to on my phone couldn't be used on the Fire. And, the fact that the Fire was based on Android 2.x and really never got better, well, that was really annoying, too.
So, when their phone was announced, even before I knew one thing about it, I was completely uninterested.
Most of Google Play's content is available cross-device? There's definitely a native iOS application for Movies/TV.
AIUI, "Google Play Services" are basically "Android updates for the Android phones that we can't upgrade because carriers won't do it". Everything ends up integrated into it because if you want one up-to-date service Android provides, you'll end up getting it through that. Otherwise the app developer is stuck on just the lowest-common-denominator.
I learned this because I have a phone running 2.2 that if I let it upgrade to Google Play Services, and then upgrade all the other stock apps on the phone that want to use it (YouTube, Gmail), leaves me without about 10MB of space on the device left over. So I shut off the upgrades. I'm not in a hurry to upgrade because it's just not what I want to do with the money.
I've been in a similar boat. The way storage partitions were handled on 2.x era devices makes the larger sizes of apps and Google Play Services really noticeable.
I try my best to use as much OSS on my phone as possible (I compile my own OS from CM), but it's really hard to get everything
If you want to use a faux-taxi or similar service, Lyft, Sidecar, Flywheel and Uber all need the Google Play Services to work.
The sad thing, is that Sidecar is available on the Amazon store, but since there's no way to explicitly state the dependency of an application on Google's libraries, it will just crash at installation/runtime with a segfault (due to not being able to load a .so)
Only after going back to a device with the Google services I realized that you can actually use Uber from your mobile browser (it's at m.uber.com, but if you visit uber.com from your mobile there're no prominent links that point to the former)
https://developer.amazon.com/post/Tx14BH5AW0NG41K/Amazon-Map...
granted, this might not be as fully-featured as Google's (I never used either), but given the existence of Openstreetmap and other efforts like the Nogapps project http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1715375 there should be enough manpower to build a solid alternative.
It's a bit sad that Amazon is not capitalizing/building-on/improving OSS, but it's even more sad that 99% (random estimate) of the (western?) Android apps are constraining themselves to run only on Google-licensed devices
edit: nvm i see it now. For ref it is at https://github.com/microg
...but as soon as hard details started coming out, it was clear that they were going for the exact opposite strategy. Lackluster hardware, a premium price, and a doubling down on their attempts to set themselves apart from Android. And the problem with this is that it's a very stupid plan.
Here, try this experiment: Walk up to someone and say: "Hey, let's sell a not-very-good Android phone at iPhone prices, after removing some of the best Android features and adding some silly hardware gimmicks that nobody will like or use!" If the person you are talking to doesn't burst into laughter, then you are talking to Jeff Bezos, because there can't be two people who think that's a sensible plan.
In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?"
Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose.
That's also why I don't see a failure of this phone as a tragic event for Amazon. It's just a piece of their strategy that didn't worked out. More like a "big test" gone wrong, than a commercial disgrace. I guess that there will be a write off and a shrug, with no hard impacts on the bottom line.
I think the idea is that there's a trade-off between ineffectiveness of this strategy and screw-the-userness, and the parent comment was thinking that maybe they'd realize they should move more down the spectrum towards a better product for the user (i.e. that they were coming on too strong with the lock-in).
Aside from whatever ethical qualms you might have about various degrees of lock-in, it's not unreasonable to think that people didn't respond favorably to the level of lock-in Amazon tried with their tablets: hence the hope that they might try an alternative strategy of lock-in (or another way to promote their products) without sacrificing user experience.
As an example of two points on the spectrum, imagine a comparison between shipping Chrome that only allows Google Search in the omnibox and the way Chrome actually is, which allows you to pick your search engine. Obviously Google is getting some advantage out of even a Chrome browser in which the search engine can be changed, but it's clearly further along the spectrum towards better user experience (and less effective lock-in) than a Google-Search-only omnibox would be.
Obviously Amazon is a content company, but something tells me that they're probably not selling a lot of content to owners of Fire phones, given the pitiful sales figures.
Keep in mind, the history of technology is rife with examples of companies that reduced or eliminated vendor lock in in order to increase adoption; it's not unreasonable to suggest that Amazon might sell more content if they sold more phones, even if those phones were more open.
And you're also completely bypassing my point about prices and margins. Even if you think the closed model is worth the costs for Amazon, clearly they'll sell more content if they sell more phones, and clearly they'll sell more phones if they're cheaper. And they're famous as a company willing to take the long view and sacrifice short term profits for long term growth and market share. Given that, wouldn't it make sense to sell the phones at cost, rather than at Apple or Samsung level margins? Worse, while the Fire ecosystem is closed, it's closed in the wrong direction.
The price point of the phone implies a strategy of "we'll make money on the phone, which people will buy because of our amazing content and user experience". But their user experience is mediocre, and their content is available everywhere. Apple can do that with iPhones, because you have to buy an iPhone to get iOS, a phone with iTunes, and most iPhone apps. But the kindle app runs just fine on my OnePlus One, as do all the other Android apps I might want to install on a Fire, if I had one. You seem to be arguing for a strategy of "we'll make money on our content, which people will buy because they already have our phones". I agree, it's a very promising strategy! But I wonder why Amazon hasn't tried it. :)
Instead, it's this pricey, gimmicky thing that proposes to make it drop-dead easy to buy stuff. Like I need another excuse to spend more money. Thanks, I'll stick with Nexus devices for now!
So throw away a closed ecosystem for another closed ecosystem? That doesn't seem like much of an upgrade. Also, Amazon is currently banned from OHA. I can't see them dropping all of their Kindle devices at once to join.
However, if I learned anything about Amazon it is their tenacity. They will keep improving and pouring billions into Fire until it works, like they've done with their Cloud business. I think pulling HP Touchpad is not an option because they are too much invested in mobile strategy. So with all that said, while I am not surprised that first Fire phone flopped, I eventually expect Amazon to have at least limited success.
What really turns me off on the product is the currently airing commercial on the radio where this girl is excited about all the notifications on her phone letting her know which book or movie she should buy next.
If there are any owners here on HN, I'm really curious what about the phone was alluring in any way.
To go be in parent OT the saddest spot ever seen in my life is the samsung gold plater with the song: "Im so fancy".
Really ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY
A phone that advertises to you? Bonkers!
I've had a bunch of packages delivered by OnTrac, UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. All of them have screwed it up at some point but all of them have gotten the vast majority (more than 90%) of deliveries exactly right.
Personally, my take is that they started this project years ago and were going to ship it come hell or high water. There are times you have to look at a product in development and get really honest about whether it crests a highwater mark for your brand, and your market.
Between the e-book fight and this disaster, Amazon's churning some ill will. They'll survive, but Fire products will probably get a more skeptical tone in reviews than before, because everyone sort of granted that they would improve and refine over time, kind of like their profit strategy.
So if a full 25% of Amazon employees decided to be company men/women, that alone would account for all their sales.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/amazon-strikers-tak...
Are the two cases that come to mind. (First link may not be Amazon, but appears to be representative of conditions in warehouses for the pickers and it links to plenty of other sources that ARE amazon)
http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/amazon-warehouse-wo...
http://recode.net/2014/06/30/amazon-was-a-prison-says-former...
http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...
I am not sure that the people running around Amazon's warehouses and doing marathon distances every day would be happy to buy the phone, however. But they do still count as employees.
1. Amazon has had financial success with the Kindle Fire
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle-ecos...
They do not have market share, but Amazon's existing venture into Android tablets has started to pay off. You can see that in 2011 the payoff was no where as big as now.
2. This is their first phone
Do we really expect their first phone to be successful? Its a huge marketplace that will take a lot to break into. I can't think of many net new smart phone makers besides Amazon in the US market. They need to get cell providers to buy into this phone. If they can't do that they are screwed imo.
All that said these numbers are tragic if true.
Amazon needs to drop Fire OS and just make a damn good Android phone with some well thought through customizations/exclusive apps for a great price. Until then, I won't even believe that their own programmers are actually using these.
A few hundred million dollars developing hardware is a rounding error on their current media revenues (which I realize sounds a bit ridiculous, but there it is).
If they stopped that investment, they'd be reasonably profitable. But right now, it's funding their world domination plans.
I'm not saying that Amazon has spent $100 million+ on smartphones. I'm also not saying that the project is a failure. I'm simply responding to the hypothetical claim that 100s of millions of dollars isn't a significant amount of money to Amazon.
(That segment includes all sorts of spending, but in the 2013 annual report they do call out devices as one of the focuses of that spending)
Google pushes Google Play for music and books. Similarly it's in Google's interest to push people to the Google storefronts.
Apple and Google make up basically 100% of the smartphone/tablet market. If Amazon doesn't get in there they may slowly get pushed out. They don't lead in music (iTunes?) or video (iTunes/Netflix?) or apps (Apple's store), and they certainly don't want to lose their position in books.
You're Amazon. You ARE datacenters. So why the ever-living-hell can I not buy FLAC-encoded lossless tracks? There is an utterly negligible cost in providing this content, its the only market which still moves CDs so there's obviously demand, but no one is touching it?
I'd point out, that Apple doesn't event support its own lossless codec for downloads, and they are arguably the market leader.
BTW, I didn't realise that they were renaming iBooks to a daft name like Beats. Thanks.
I don't have an Amazon tablet, but my Kindle has ads for completely uninteresting books right on the home screen.
Actually, the reverse. Apple's goal is to sell more hardware; software/music/books/videos just exist to draw users into the ecosystem and keep them there. Apple doesn't care where you get your content (though iTunes & iBooks makes it more "sticky"), so long as you use Apple hardware and buy more of it. That iTunes & iBooks & etc make Apple truckloads of cash is just a bonus.
Google's MO is to gather as much info as possible. Selling music & books just gives Google more data to mine. Again, the truckloads of cash is a great bonus.
Amazon, however, is all about selling content. The Kindle line (Fire phone included) exist just to persuade customers to buy more - hence the magic find-and-buy-this button and other cart-greasing features.
They have to focus on how the device is creating some sort of value for their end users. Streamlining the process of buying products does little to add value. Instead, it looks like a selfish attempt by the company to increase sales. Nobody cares if a product is good for the company, they buy a product because it is good for them. If the Fire does have a value proposition, the advertising has done a miserable job of pointing that out.
I haven't actually played with the phone yet, so I can't say if it is a bad device or just bad marketing. But I'm not surprised at the lukewarm response it has gotten.
How would I be sold on the Fire Phone, Amazon? Allow the phone to be unlocked and lower off-contract price. Then, I'd consider it. I like the phone's features, but if the value isn't there, then I'll pass.
(And yes we tried getting Amazon to give us the unlock code. They said their contract with AT&T didn't allow it.)
If I'd bought and held Amazon 10 years ago, would I be kicking myself now?
That being said, currently there's no real differentiator for this phone. Maybe they'll eventually do unlimited bandwidth deals for Prime video / music content? (or do they already have that?)
And, lets be honest, it isn't like the earlier versions of any android device are worth writing home about. Finally moved from a moto droidish era phone up to the moto g. It is truly impressive how far they have come.
Do you think the hardware has got better with the Motorola, or just the software and general less clunkiness?
I am trying to get rid of the books that I have and digitise them or get digital copies if I can. I ought to use one of those book-scanning services to digitise them and make the house empty. I feel bad getting rid of real books given the effort someone has gone through to write them, but they do get recycled I suppose.
I wouldn't expect the 10m numbers that an iPhone pulls in an opening weekend, but they couldn't even break 50k let alone 100k.
Elite techies and brand specifiers are panning the Fire phone; why didn't Amazon reach out to such people sooner and find out what features they are willing to pay for?
The Fire phone is hobbled right out of the gate by a non-standard Android version and a non-Google app store. They have to offer something more compelling to customers than "it will scan things into your Amazon shopping cart".
As others have suggested, bundling 5 years of Prime membership would have been a nice start. One year - not so much. I, like thousands of others, am wondering whether or not to renew my Prime at $99. Do I really need to spend that much money just to spend more money? Starting to doubt....
Which flagship was it, out of interest?
For example, here is a 2013 list of the top selling phones in Spain (list on the left): http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista-de-...
As you can see, that year's Samsung flagship (Galaxy S3) makes the top 10, and the iPhone doesn't, although the iPhone is on top of the right list (% buyers who give the phone a 9 or 10 out of 10).
Let me guess: You're an iPhone owner, aren't you?
Lots of people are willing to pay good money for a good, unlocked phone off contract.
Maybe not in San Fransisco, or even in the US where the telecom industry is fucked up beyond repair, but that's still quite a tiny fraction of the real world.
(To be precise, it is available for a little less when it is not fulfilled by Amazon.)
Sometimes we don't use what we want, even if we can afford it, because what we want just isn't practical. Even though we wish it was. If that were the case, I'd still be using my Palm Pre.