Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire tablet, which started shipping this week, costs $201.70 to make, a research firm said Friday. That’s $2.70 more than Amazon charges for it. The analysis by IHS indicates that Amazon is, at least initially, selling the tablet at a loss that it hopes to cover through sales of books and movies for the device. The manufacturing cost of a new gadget usually comes down over time as chips become cheaper. That’s pretty amazing. Now it’s no Ipad for sure. It’s a lot more plastic looking and cheaper looking and that’s because… It’s cheaper.
Amazon kept the cost of the tablet low compared to Apple Inc.’s iPad and similar tablets by making it smaller – the screen is half the size of that for the iPad – keeping the amount of memory low and excluding a camera and microphone.I have consistently said that Amazon will make a KILLING this holiday season because the price is right! I can’t wait to see how they do. Microsoft take note.]]>
