Individual Case: Kindle Fire

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Kindle Fire is low-priced in comparison to Apple and other products.
• Amazon has created a loyal customer base motivated to shop at Amazon.com first.
• Kindle Fire is better quality compared to Samsung and Nook.
• Kindle Fire has a strong customer centric brand recognition backing it.

Weaknesses

• Limited customer options since customers must utilize Amazon.com top download.
• Shammed history of 7-inch tablets.
• Kindle Fire is limited to those products produced by Amazon.
• Kinde Fire does not permit e-book sharing.

Opportunities

• Kindle Fire can keep selling at cost to entice more e-reader customers.
• By expanding the range of e-books chosen by readers in Kindle Fire, Amazon can increase market demand.
• The low-cost of the Kindle Fire device has increased readership of existing customer’s.
• Opportunity to increase Amazon Prime member loyalty when attempting to expand customer base.

Threats

• Kindle Fire operating system, based on Android technology, fails t provide a competitive advantage since same technology is utilized by other e-readers and smartphones.
• Only e-commerce, rather than physical stores.
• fierce price wars from competitors such as Samsung and Nook.

Statement of Problem

During a brimful tablet market period, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, was confronted with challenging decisions. Importantly, Bezos had to decide between continuing to concentrate on an e-readers market which Amazon dominated via its Kindle product or thrusting forward into tablets. Amazon’s diligent search for a platform to call its newest asset produced a user-friendly, content-driven device called the Kindle Fire. However, Amazon’s approach resulted in increased purchases of content, as well as other physical items and services. Nevertheless, the hardware subsidy would be overshadowed by the acquired margins.

Questions

1. The Kindle Fire is a low-priced tablet computer from Amazon. The Kindle Fire can be categorized as a tablet because its form factor is larger than the smart phone yet smaller than most other tablets It is designed for easier manipulation while continuing to offer a moderately large screen.

2. The size of the Kindle Fire fits somewhere between and iPhone and an iPad coupled with low price, suggests that Amazon’s target audience as younger low-income consumers, such as students. Also, Amazon’s regular customers will certainly be targets for the Kindle Fire since the device automatically links their Amazon account with the bookstore, app store, music store, and the like.