Quote:
Originally Posted by GlenBarrington
Which makes me wonder, is the Kindle unfortunate overhead for Amazon? Or is it a valid product line? A lot of time, energy, and other resources go into producing and marketing the typical Kindle device.
Surely, by now, if Amazon just wanted to sell ebooks, the Kindle devices are redundant. Tablets won't kill the Kindles and the other readers. Larger screen smartphones might (My Moto Z2 play is almost good enough fo me to read on for long periods of time). But certainly, tablets will be killed by the smartphone first!
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For a long time Amazon said they sold Kindles at cost in order to help them sell books. I haven't heard that from Amazon in recent years although they might just be saying it where I'm not there to hear it.
My guess, and it's only a guess, is that Amazon still keeps margins low on the Paperwhite and the basic Kindle, but makes more on the Voyage and the various Oases. And that the Kindles as a group still have a number of important values for them in addition to whatever profit they might be making on them.
First, the Kindle is well known and Kindle has almost become a generic term for ereader and that makes Amazon look good. It's probably not one of their bigger financial successes although it probably is a success that way too, but it's certainly a major publicity miracle. This is probably enough reason for Amazon to keep the Kindle line going even if there weren't any other reasons.
Second, the Kindle probably does help them sell a lot of books. it may not be their biggest spur to ebook sales but I suspect it's still an important source. If they quit making Kindles I bet we'd see a big rise in Nook sales and Kobos would start selling at Walmart or Target.
Third, they've pretty well perfected it. They've done most of the research they have to do and now all they have to do is just keep it from looking like old tech. Probably that isn't cheap but it's probably very cheap in comparison with what they spent getting here.
I'd be pretty surprised if Amazon stopped improving the Kindle in the foreseeable future. You never know, of course. If any company is likely to surprise you they're the one. I suspect the Kindle will keep right on improving, but not at the rate phones are improving. Companies compete with each other to sell phones. Ereaders are about selling books, not devices, so they're not really competing that much and competition is what brings big improvements.
Barry