Amazon Fire Phone price was wrong, reckons company exec
Alexandra BurlacuThe Amazon Fire Phone did not see the success the company was likely hoping for, and an Amazon executive has now reckoned that the smartphone's price was off.
Amazon is quite successful on the tablet market with its Kindle lineup, and the company made its first foray into the fiercely-competitive smartphone market with the Fire Phone. After ages of speculation and anticipation for Amazon's first smartphone, however, the Fire Phone raised some interest when it made its debut, but failed to attract many customers.
Amazon top executive David Limp has now acknowledged that the company got the pricing wrong for the smartphone.
"We didn't get the price right," Limp admitted in an interview with Fortune. "I think people come to expect a great value, and we sort of mismatched expectations. We thought we had it right. But we're also willing to say, 'we missed.' And so we corrected."
Amazon launched its Fire Phone back in June, and the initial price tag was indeed quite high for what the smartphone has to offer, especially since it is the company's very first phone. The 32GB model of the Amazon Fire Phone came with a $199 price tag, while the 64GB version went up to $299.
The Amazon Fire Phone received less-than-stellar reviews and didn't exactly fly off the shelves at that price, and the company finally decided to drop the price tag in an effort to attract more customers.
Amazon slashed the price of its Fire Phone from the original $199 to as low as $1 back in September, for customers who agreed to purchase the smartphone on a two-year contract with AT&T in the U.S. The company also offered similar discounts in Germany, where interested buyers could purchase the phone for €1 from Deutsche Telekom, and the UK, where the Amazon Fire Phone shed its upfront cost altogether with carrier O2.
Moreover, Amazon also slashed the price tag of the unlocked version of the Fire Phone, offering the handset for $449 instead of the original $649 price tag it launched with.
Not too long ago, Amazon also reckoned that it suffered a notable loss related to the Fire Phone, as it ended the quarter with roughly $83 million units in inventory. The damage is done, however, and Amazon has accepted and acknowledged its mistakes with the Fire Phone. It remains to be seen whether the company will stop here or go forth with another smartphone in the future, but one thing's for sure: if a second-generation Fire Phone does hit the market, it will likely sport a more appropriate price tag.
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