Amazon Exec: Fire Phone Was Overpriced

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David Limp, Amazon's senior vice president of devices, has acknowledged that the Fire smartphone didn't match Amazon's lofty ideas and says the price of the device was "wrong." In other words, sales of the Fire flop have been poor, and about $83 million in smartphone stock remains unsold -- despite an eventual price drop to 99 cents in the United States.
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It isn't that the price was too high, it's that the phone sucked.

Most Amazon's ecosystem can be used on standard Android devices, but the reverse isn't true. If Android is about having options, why am I going to use a phone that gives me less of them? I get why Amazon released the phone-they need insight into more of their customers' lives. But there is not a single compelling feature on this phone.
 
and by "drop to 99 cents" they mean "Drop to 99 cents AND a 2 year contract". How this phone was any more than $99 without any contract obligations is beyond me.
 
The lack of SD card is to push users to use streaming services and cloud storage. It makes sense that Amazon would go this direction much like Apple has. That said it is also one of the reasons I wouldn't buy a phone from either of them.

Being AT&T exclusive was the least intelligent choice IMHO.
 
DECIM8 said:
Being AT&T exclusive was the least intelligent choice IMHO.
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Locking your product to ANY carrier is a terrible choice, though I'd say AT&T is the best network to do it on. It isn't crappy CDMA like Verizon/Sprint, is much cheaper than Verizon, and has much better reception than Sprint/T-Mo overall (some areas are exceptions, of course).
 
Expensive, neutered OS with features locked out(stupid amazon "ecosystem"), mediocre hardware, locked to one carrier...

GEE, I can't imagine why no one wanted the damned thing. And even though it's now free or 99 cents with a contract, it's still $549 without a contract. If I'm going to get a phone on contract, why not get something that either works with my carrier of choice(or at least just buy a locked down phone from the carrier that I want) that offers me more? Hell, I can get a galaxy s5 for just as much(little less, little more depending on where you shop) and not have a contract.
 
at most it should have been $299 without contract. being at&t exclusive did a lot of harm too. whoever thought of that was dumb.
 
It should have been priced inline with the Nexus devices off contract. No carrier limitations and no locks on boot loader. This would have got them the developer following.

They should have thought - is this a phone we want to make money on? Or is this a phone we want to get data with and then make money on with that data?

Plus, being new to the phone market, it should have been discounted. Once they get the fans, subsequent releases could have been a little more.

Marketing 101.
 
dandragonrage said:
Locking your product to ANY carrier is a terrible choice, though I'd say AT&T is the best network to do it on. It isn't crappy CDMA like Verizon/Sprint, is much cheaper than Verizon, and has much better reception than Sprint/T-Mo overall (some areas are exceptions, of course).
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Unless you want to be specific, AT&T seems to only be cheaper with single lines, once you get into the shared plans they are pretty much exactly the same as Verizon.

AT&T and Verizon have always been pretty much the same as each other. One implements a new pricing scheme/policy the other follows shortly after.

Each have better coverage than the other in different areas. How one completely sucks and the other is "much" cheaper doesn't seem to be as obvious as you make it sound.

Exclusive do suck though and imo Amazon thought too much of themselves that people would buy into their limitations without being compensated in other areas. The Fire is popular because it is a quality device for the price. People are willing to have ads/limitations if cheap enough.
 
illli said:
at most it should have been $299 without contract. being at&t exclusive did a lot of harm too. whoever thought of that was dumb.
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Most accurate and true comment I've read so far. Had the phone been that price, and usable on T-Mo, I would have snatched one up. But At&t + $700 = No way. I'd get an iPhone6 or HTC One M8 well before that thing.
 
If your going to sell a crippled portal to only your store, at least do it at a subsidized price point and on more then 1 carrier. Amazon doesn't have the following to pull an Apple! :rolleyes:
 
Almost everybody in this thread is right...almost nobody outside the nerd community cares about having an SD slot in their phone/tablet anymore. :D

Now that Amazon has finally made their video available on regular Android, the Fire Phone is that much more pointless. It might've been a good phone for my nephews (the rest of my family is very Amazon-oriented) otherwise.
 
Babbster said:
Almost everybody in this thread is right...almost nobody outside the nerd community cares about having an SD slot in their phone/tablet anymore. :D
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That kind of depends. One some of these ultra cheap phones and tablets that cut their onboard storage to the bare minimum then SD slots are important in that not having one makes the device less attractive to similar cheap devices that do. For higher end devices with lots of onboard storage it's not nearly as big of a deal.
 
Just another industry moron who doesn't get it .... nobody wants your bundled 2 year contract bullshit. Tel you what, you prepay the 2 years for me, and then I'll give you $199 for the phone.

Let's see. The 64GB HTC One $600 cash (or any other good phone straight up cash unlocked), T-Mobile unlim data no-contract $30/mo x 24 $720 = $1320 cost of 2 years.

"X" phone $199 cash, ATT/Verizon 2 yr $90/mo contract x 24 $2160 = $2359 cost of 2 years.

Hmmm, well, let's see, which is a better deal, hmmm.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Just another industry moron who doesn't get it .... nobody wants your bundled 2 year contract bullshit. Tel you what, you prepay the 2 years for me, and then I'll give you $199 for the phone.

Let's see. The 64GB HTC One $600 cash (or any other good phone straight up cash unlocked), T-Mobile unlim data no-contract $30/mo x 24 $720 = $1320 cost of 2 years.

"X" phone $199 cash, ATT/Verizon 2 yr $90/mo contract x 24 $2160 = $2359 cost of 2 years.

Hmmm, well, let's see, which is a better deal, hmmm.
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So how good is T-Mobile's LTE? I have Verizon & AT&T service and I've been very pleased with the quality of the data service on both.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Just another industry moron who doesn't get it .... nobody wants your bundled 2 year contract bullshit. Tel you what, you prepay the 2 years for me, and then I'll give you $199 for the phone.

Let's see. The 64GB HTC One $600 cash (or any other good phone straight up cash unlocked), T-Mobile unlim data no-contract $30/mo x 24 $720 = $1320 cost of 2 years.

"X" phone $199 cash, ATT/Verizon 2 yr $90/mo contract x 24 $2160 = $2359 cost of 2 years.

Hmmm, well, let's see, which is a better deal, hmmm.
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Some people make calls every now and then, they might also have more than one line on their account. They might even travel to remote areas in the US and need cell service. The holes in your plan are endless. The plan works for YOU, but that doesn't mean it will work for everyone.
 
DPI said:
Hate to say it but only nerds care. 99.99% of consumers do not give a shit about expandable storage.
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:rolleyes: Link?

Samsung, the #1 smartphone maker, put SD slots in their phones. So their marketing research must be different than yours.
 
I don't know what they were thinking. The phone was too expensive and had a gimmick.
Otherwise, it's running against some very tough competition.
From what I recall of the reviews, it was more of a meh-phone than anything. Not bad, but not great. If the Amazon eco system isn't appealing, it loses a lot of points.
Other problem: limited software. This does not support Google Play. (You might be able to side-load to do it, but most people would have no clue)
 
Honestly, I don't know what happened. The team responsible for marketing the Fire Phone should be fired. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, knew this phone was destined for failure from day 1. It was a gimmicky phone with mediocre specs at a flag ship price. Not to mention, the forked OS made it obsolete from the package. Amazon midazwell bury these phone like Atari did with E.T.
 
heatlesssun said:
So how good is T-Mobile's LTE? I have Verizon & AT&T service and I've been very pleased with the quality of the data service on both.
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Hit or miss for T-Mo LTE. I'm leaving them and returning to Verizon because I miss the data quality and coverage.
 
I've found T-Mo voice calls to be more reliable, although sometimes of lower quality as compared to Verizon. Verizon would drop many calls for me and T-Mobile has not. Verizon calls tended to be clearer if they worked. I have not noticed much difference in data, but I only use about 400 megs of mobile data in an average month.

Portland, OR metro area.
 
Tyler-Durden said:
Hit or miss for T-Mo LTE. I'm leaving them and returning to Verizon because I miss the data quality and coverage.
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Thanks. As much as people like to rag on Verizon and AT&T, it seems that that they currently have the best overall service and coverage.
 
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