Insider: Amazon tablet comes in the third quarter
Device should lure with film streaming - start plausible for analysts
The online retailer Amazon plans to bring its own tablet onto the market as early as August or September. This is reported by the Taiwanese industry portal DigiTimes, citing sources from component manufacturers.
Accordingly, the company will offer film streaming for its in-house tablet and is aiming to sell four million units this year.Although Amazon has so far never specifically commented on rumors about Kindle tablets as in-house competition to the iPad, these now seem very plausible. "The fact that there is an Amazon Appstore for Android leaves little room for doubt about an early market entry," said Julien Theys, Senior Mobile Analyst at Screen Digest, opposite pressetext.
iPad versus Kindle: Soon a duel with Amazon tablet (Photo: flickr.com, John Blyberg)
Touch panels like iPhone
According to the latest report, the Amazon tablet will use touch panels from Wintek - the Taiwanese manufacturer that also supplies the panels for the iPhone and iPad. Contrary to earlier rumors, a CPU from Texas Instruments and not Nvidia's Tegra will be used. The large ODM Quanta Computer is responsible for the production of the Amazon tablet. 700.000 to 800.000 tablets are to be shipped every month. It is of course unlikely that Amazon will ever officially confirm these figures - after all, the company also keeps the Kindle sales figures under lock and key.
In any case, the device would have the potential to become an Apple challenger. "With its own app store and its own Android variant, Amazon can try to market an iPad competitor," explains Theys. Because, like the top dog, Amazon can offer a complete platform with hardware, content, cloud offers and its own sales point - even if only online and not in the form of physical Apple stores. "So there is no intermediary between product or service and the customer," said the analyst. Amazon could also translate that into a price advantage.
More attractive than set-top boxes
A little more than half a year ago, Theys was still of the opinion that Amazon could promote its own content sales with cheap set-top boxes. The company would be able to control the consumption of content more easily on the TV set than on other devices. "The tablet market is much more attractive today," said the analyst. Because set-top boxes have not yet been the big hit. He points out that things have become quite quiet around Google TV, for example.
If Amazon is actually launching its own tablet, entry into the market in the third quarter is at least plausible. This allows the device to still snack on the "back-to-school" business in the USA - traditionally a strong phase for Apple. In addition, availability during the Christmas business should then be ensured.
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