test: Amazon FIRE Phone – We wish it Well – But its Dead on Arrival – We Give it 6 Arrows Down ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

★Amazon Fire Phone. Amazon recently announced its first smartphone, the Fire Phone, a highly anticipated device, that has been “in the making” for years. The Fire Phone represents Amazon’s continued push to fabricate and sell hardware. Apparently Amazon’s hardware strategy has changed, as the Fire Phone is priced similarly to premium smartphones like Apple’s highly successful iPhone 5s, which is selling at an annual pace of 200 million iPhones.

★ The Question remains that only “time will tell” will Amazon price and sell its new Fire Phone for a reasonable 25% profit, or will Amazon again be forced to sell this new hardware for a loss to maintain some marginal market-share.

★ Amazon’s Fire Phone smartphone is in stark contrast to the bargain-basement, loss-leader pricing of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets, which Amazon has been selling at a loss for years in effort to: (1) maintain only a single digit market-share, and (2) sell its eBooks and Amazon.com products. This raises some serious questions about the success of Amazon’s hardware strategy. One would reasonably ask… Why continue to fabricate and sell hardware at losses?

★ Well I can repeat the answer to the WHY question that Jeff Bezos gives. Amazon is Not making money selling its the Kindle Fire tablets but has managed to win a “decent level of market-share” of the worldwide tablet market.

★ During the fourth quarter of 2013, Amazon came in third place, behind Apple and Samsung, with a 7.6% market share (only because they are selling Kindles at a loss), moving about 5.8 million units during the previous quarter. IMHO, market-share achieved by selling a product at continued losses with little hope of ever selling the Kindle Fire for a reasonable profit margin, is CEO insanity.

★ Why bother attempting to compete, by selling the Kindle Fire at losses, quarter after quarter, year after year. Negative is negative and sooner or later you’ve got to give up the loss-leader strategy, particularly when the entire AMAZON.com enterprise is operating at marginally above ZERO profits, for years. AMZN shares are trading at over 400x earnings at $325/share, Wow, this defines intoxicating, exuberant enthusiasm, LOL, (this time, meaning lots of luck).

★ Apple on the other hand has made continued profits selling its iPads from the very first month of iPad sales in April, 2010 through to today, and selling iPads at an annual pace of 60 million units.

★ The low price, below cost to fabricate, the Amazon’s Kindle tablets are a big factor in its market-share achievement. However, the low prices are so low, Amazon is loosing from 5% to 15% with each unit sale. Amazon’s strategy… has been to sell the hardware below cost, or near cost, in an effort to get their Kindle Fire tablet buyers to purchase more eBooks and other retail products from Amazon.

★ With a history of terrible multi-year loss-leader experience, with Amazon’s Kindle Fire Tablets, Why is Amazon taking the financial risk of bringing a smartphone to market? As Amazon’s Fire Phone is priced in line with Apple’s iPhone 5S and Samsung’s Galaxy S5, it’s unlikely that Amazon’s plan is to use the Fire Phone to spur shopping at Amazon.com.

★ Amazon is giving away a free year of Prime to people who buy their Fire Phone smartphone. Perhaps Amazon is targeting existing Prime members, but since you can buy Amazon products from any smartphone, and Amazon’s Firefly (featured button) on the Fire Phone, is little more than a glorified price-scanner, the Fire Phone seems like a likely tough sell.

★ You’ve noticed. I have not regurgitated all the specifications and comparisons, and given thumbs up / thumbs down, line-by-line. The reason, Amazon’s Fire Phone does not represent any significant advancement in SmartPhone technology nor operability, and barely “keeps up” with the two smartphone’s its competing with not to mention that iPhone 6 is about to release, in 74 days, with another generation of imaginative improvements…

★ IMHO, Amazon’s Fire Phone will be a Huge Failure. There will not be millions standing on Line at 5am at AT&T retail locations for this smartphone later in July. OH, did I mention the Apple EcoSphere, the platform, its stability, reliability, safety, and the 1,250,000 transformative Apps that magnify the usability of all 500,000,000 iPhones globally.

★ Amazon is getting distracted, IMHO which threatens its core business, which is also not operating well. There’s no question that Amazon has been wildly successful from a “Volume” standpoint, (not on a profits standpoint) as an online retailer, but Amazon has no advantages when it comes to hardware.

★ Amazon appears to be suffering from “DiWorsification” This is a “term” coined by legendary investor Peter Lynch to describe a company that diversifies into markets where it has no advantages, causing the company to suffer with more pain. Amazon may think it has the “Midas Touch” but it doesn’t. It’s a huge Retailer trying to be something that it’s not, because it continues to not break-out of either zero profits or near zero profitability; that’s a story that generally never ends well, yet its shares trade at over 400x earnings for years.

★ Fire Phone is not a threat to Apple or Samsung. For the same price as the Fire Phone, you can get a device made by a company whose business is to make compelling devices. Apple’s iPhone comes with the vast Apple ecosystem, and Samsung’s Galaxy smart phones have all that Google has to offer. But, although Amazon’s Fire Phone runs a fork of Android, it’s missing Google Play and all of Google’s popular apps, leaving it hobbled compared to the competition.

Pleased you’re reading, with over 55,000 readers world-wide, giving motivation as new topics are published every day. Spread the Word to your friends, family, and associates; Forward the link below, post it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Networks for their review,, Anyone may subscribe, its secure and confidential; Every time I publish an article, WordPress will send a reminder (no Ads of course) with a link to my new Story: http://ift.tt/19pAPPd

To learn more about what else we do, take a moment and visit these links, browse around. We are pleased with over 24,934,205 visits as of May 29, 2014: http://www.416-1100.com .

Perspective: These articles are created to inform a diverse audience, whether it be photography, digital cameras, lenses, Image editing, Apps, Smartphones, iPads, iPhones, Laptops and related products, Health & Wellness, or any news-worthy topic. The purpose is to inform, from sources that are believed to be reliable, and stimulate Dialogue.

Imaging Bus Card

If digital Imaging is of interest, I teach a course named "Principles of Digital Imaging and Post Image Processing" as an Adjunct Prof at FAU: http://ift.tt/19pAQ5y

When I do what I do… I usually do it here.

As a "Health Nut" for Health & Wellness; http://ift.tt/1iIfMrA

Isagenix Bus Card

As many of my friends, family and students know, I am an avid iPad adopter since its release April, 2010. With Apple’s release of the Retina-Display iPad Mini, (I sold my iPad 4 to Gazelle.com) applied the proceeds to purchase the "mini" with 128GB of Storage, AT&T connectivity, plus added Logitech’s UltraThin Keyboard Cover, and an ACME MADE San Francisco rubberized thin slip-over protective case. This thin package actually fits into my trousers pocket.