Amazon to whup Apple rivals when Kindle Fire hits UK Apple's tablet rivals will face "almost impossible competition" when Amazon brings its Kindle Fire to the UK, pollster YouGov has predicted. Having talked to more than 3000 Brits about their fondness for fondleslabs, YouGov found that 72 per cent of punters planning to pick up a tablet in the near future said they will pick an …
I think the reason Amazon are not selling the Fire in the UK yet is because they don't have the necessary media deals in place. Opinion seems to be that they're losing money on the actual device and look to make the profit on the media etc. that the users consume on the device. So, without that in place, it makes no sense for them to release it in the UK.
Even so, I think a lot of people will be tempted to hold out for the UK launch, so it will still probably hit sales of other tablet devices.
They tried to sell near identikit products, in HP's case with significantly reduced functionality, at the same price point as the runaway market leader. Amazon seem to be the first company to have hit on the idea of doing a device that is both distinct and priced attractively.
Unless Microsoft do something really amazing, my feeling is that it's a two-horse race from here on out. The interesting thing will be whether Amazon's forked Android slowly diverges from the Google original on technical grounds so as to make it effectively a different target.
The BOM cost for the HP Touchpad was estimated at about $317 (I'm going from memory, so might be $10 out), which was a shade under the estimated BOM for the iPad. Rather than because of greed and stupidity, it could be said that the price point was set at where it was because HP could make a profit from each device sold.
Arguably, it wasn't the price itself that was a problem for HP, but that the performance was a little buggy (something that just about every review pointed to) and that in the mind for many consumers, there was no compelling reason why they should go with an WebOS tablet, rather than an iOS or Android one.
The US retail price of $199 converts to £129. Yet apparently we in Britain are going to be content with a price-point that is nearly twice that.
In other news: A YouGov survey finds that Britains on the whole are mugs and don't mind being ripped off by consumer electronics vendors, incompetent telcos, lying politicians, corrupt town planners, ham-fisted taxmen, deseased health workers, uneducated teachers and well-overpaid public servants. After all, one mustn't grumble.
The survey says Britons who want a tablet are willing to pay a maximum of £250 for one. It did *not* say that Amazon were planning to charge £250 for a Kindle Fire in the UK.
Nor did the survey say that anyone would pay £250 for a Fire. Most people who know enough about tablets to make a judgement will be using the iPad 2 as their idea of what a tablet is, so really the survey is saying that consumers think that £250 is a fair price point for an iPad.
Is this the same YouGov thing that says "For now we talk of Tablets but we mean the iPad (unless we are part of the techoratti (sic) that revels in the minor anti-Apple backlash)"?
Could it be that the whole article's just trolling for hitz though so YouGov can convince our glorious leaders that they are big players, and sell them yet more crappy survey data from bored morons dressed up as market research?
'YouGov said £250 is the price people want to pay for tablets'
Erm how far up their arseare their collective heads? DId no one learn anything from the HP debacle? $199 <> £250 by a LONG shot.
I was actually looking forward to perhaps justifying spending money on one of these but once again we are getting shafted on price.
If the US price is $199 then I would really hope the Fire in UK is £150 at the very most. The current exchange rate brings it to £128 but we all know that UK gets the raw end of the stick with tech prices. If the device came in at between £128 to £150 in UK then I'm sure it'll just fly off the shelves.
The Kindle 3 launched in the US at $189 (sans tax; see the many articles on Amazon's US avoidance of sales taxes) and the UK at £152 (fully taxed), both back in July last year. At the time the exchange rate was around $1.50 to the pound and VAT was 17.5%, so a literal translation of the US price with no other adjustments would have been about £148.
I therefore think it's likely we'll get a pretty accurate conversion rate for the Fire.
Because British people like to buy christmas presents AFTER Christmas? This still makes no sense, anyone planning on buying a Fire will now look elsewhere to a brand that offers it's products in the UK. Post-christmas there will be no demand and in the UK the Fire will disappear into obscurity.
a nice way of twisting a study to apple's favour. So how many of the 3000 are looking to buy a tablet? Of those that were looking to buy an ipad, how many were actually informed of what else was out there? I suspect to a significant amount the selection read something like this: choose from
a. Apple ipad
b. apple ipad 2
c. samsung galaxddfdfffee
d. blackberry dfddef;kwwew
e. sdssdk sfsdfdf,;
f. sffdfsfdf;l ????????
the point is, most of the other devices meant nothing to them, so they simply selected the most well known. The ipad's success has nothing to do with being better than the competition (it isn't by a long shot) or android being too expensive (they are already good value when compared to the ipad). Apple have simply done an outstanding job in promoting the ipad, and in promotion is where all the rivals are failing miserably. They could be handing android tablets out for free and they still wouldn't shift as many if they don't promote them. Samsung and the Galaxy S2 is a perfect example of this. The GS2 is selling like hot cakes, and part of that is certainly down to the huge amount of promotion they are displaying everywhere. In a world saturated with information and tech, simply releasing a good product will mean nothing unless you are able to ram it into the public's conscience.
PS: where is Asus once again in these surveys, especially seeing as they have released the most popular android fondleslab out there?
Key phrase you use: "simply selected the most well known".
True, and it shows that the rest are *not* as well known. And that goes double for Asus and companies like it. They may be well known by tech fans, but not by average folks.
Do not dismiss marketing: it's how you sell a f**k of a lot more kit than your competitors.
Thanks, Amazon!
Maybe the companies will finally understand that to compete with Apple, you can't make a product that is as good as, or even better than Apple, if you price it close to their product.
This has always, always been true in the PC space. People who want a Mac, buy a Mac, the price/specs don't have much bearing on it.
The fondleslab market is a little more fuzzy.. maybe people think they want an iPad, but if they saw what is an extremely similar device for practically half the price, from a big name, they'll probably give it a look. If it's the same price, they'll get an iPad, because.. it's an iPad, it makes them cool, right?
I have always said that, the mistake Apple's rivals are making is in their pricing and that is why those alternatives have not taken off.
If someone is going to spend £350 - £400 on a tablet, they are most likely to go for the common option that is tried and tested (and is already used by their friends and colleagues).
However, price that alternative at £200 - £250 and people will be much more likely to 'Take The Risk' and buck the trend.
Saying that, there is the possibility that, once Android(ish) tablets become more common and acceptable due to the Kindle offering, people may look at the more shiny and pricey alternative with more favorably.
Tim
What I think the implication is that the "tipping" point in the UK for people to buy a tablet is £250, however if Amazon maintain the same price point for the Fire relative to the iPad then that yields a UK price of around £130 ... also using price ratio from e-ink kindles to fire in the US yields price of around £150/160. I.e looks likely that Kindle Fire will launch at well below the price people seriously consider buying a tablet so sales could be huge.
Much as the Fire looks interesting - there is no way I am paying any money to Amazon for a product that comes from the Apple side of doing things - eg:
We could have added SD removable storage without really increasing our manufacturing costs at all - but we decided not to - so the 8GB on board is all you have whether you like it or not.....
Um..... no thanks.
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