Since I was complaining about people complaining about people complaining about Amazon, I thought the best thing is to stop.
On topic,
this is the original source for the news.
Quote:
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Competition is more fierce than e-Readers & Tablets – We expect Amazon's smartphone to be a mid end device based on the processor it adopts. While OMAP 4 is mainly used in high end models right now, TI's OMAP 5 (ARM Cortex A15, 2GHz dual core) launch in 3Q12 will likely knock OMAP 4430 (ARM Cortex A9, 1.2 GHz dual core) to the mid end segment in 4Q12. We estimate that: i) OMAP 4430 will be priced at around US$10 by 4Q2012; ii) 4 inch touch panel + display could cost around US$20-22 by 4Q12; iii) A QCOM dual mode baseband (HSPA+ / CDMA EVDO) may cost around US$10-12; iv) 8MP camera will cost US$9-10; and v) 512MB Mobile DDR + 8GB NAND flash should cost below US$15. Overall, we believe the hardware BOM cost should be below US$100. Considering various royalty (3G + OS royalty to MSFT, other software, etc.), assembly fees, warranty, warehouse costs, etc, we estimate Amazon's overall costs should be around US$150-170. What is important to note is that Amazon does not need to make money on hardware. Hence, it can sell this mid-end dual core smartphone to carriers at US$170 in 4Q2012. For a normal brand like HTC, they need to price the product at US$243 to make 30% gross margin. If Amazon is actually willing to lose some money on the device, the price gap could be even bigger. Besides Amazon, Xiaomi Tech is also selling a handset with compatible spec to HTC Sensation at around US$317, which is roughly where the overall cost is.
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Based on Amazon's pricing on the other devices, it seems likely that it might cost $199. If there is an ads supported version maybe it would be $170-$180.