AMAZON: We're Sold Out Of The Kindle Fire (AMZN)

In a somewhat unusual press release Amazon announced that it sold out of its $200 tablet, the Kindle Fire. In the release, CEO Jeff Bezos says, "Kindle Fire is sold out, but we have an exciting roadmap ahead—we will continue to offer our customers the best hardware, the best prices, the best customer service, the best cross-platform interoperability, and the best content ecosystem." He appears to be saying Amazon will not make any more Kindle Fires, at least not the current model. Amazon is hosting a special media event one week from today where it's expected to announce the next wave of Kindle Fires and e-readers. If Amazon is sold out of Fires, it would follow that the next tablets will be available for sale right away. In Amazon's release it says it captured 22% of the tablet market in the U.S. over the last nine months. Its cheap tablet was appealing to people who didn't want to pay $400-$500 for the iPad. But Amazon now faces competition from Google with the Nexus 7, and Apple is reportedly going to release an iPad Mini which will compete with the Kindle Fire. Amazon will have to make the next generation of the Kindle Fire significantly better if it wants to compete with Google and Apple. Here's the full release: Less than one year ago, Amazon introduced Kindle Fire—combining 15 years of innovation into a single, fully-integrated, end-to-end service for customers. Kindle Fire quickly became the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon.com, earning over 10,000 5-star customer reviews, and is the #1 best-selling product across the millions of items available on Amazon since its introduction 48 weeks ago. Today, Amazon announced that Kindle Fire is sold out, and that in just nine months, Kindle Fire has captured 22% of tablet sales in the U.S. “We’re grateful to the millions of customers who have made Kindle Fire the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “This has been a big year for digital products on Amazon—all of the top 10 sellers on Amazon.com since Kindle Fire launched just less than a year ago are digital products. Kindle Fire is sold out, but we have an exciting roadmap ahead—we will continue to offer our customers the best hardware, the best prices, the best customer service, the best cross-platform interoperability, and the best content ecosystem.” Kindle Fire offers customers a vast selection of digital content—over 22 million movies, TV shows, apps, games, books, magazines and more—in one seamless, end-to-end experience, making it easy for customers to browse, discover and purchase. Since Kindle Fire launched last September, all of the top 10 products on Amazon—across all products—are digital products. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

The Only Way Google's Chromebooks Will EVER Succeed (GOOG)

Google and its partners just cut the price of Chromebooks $100, to $299. They should keep cutting prices and make them free. By giving Chromebooks away in a carrier-subsidized model, Google might just create something useful out of an otherwise unimpressive product. We've been extremely skeptical about Chromebooks and the Web-only Chrome OS ever since Google unveiled them last fall. They do a lot less than traditional computers -- you can't run desktop apps, and a lot of peripherals like printers aren't supported. You couldn't even plug in a camera in the first iteration. And they don't have the cool factor of a touch screen tablet. But after using the Samsung Chromebook that Google sent me for a few months, I've come to the conclusion that it could make a decent secondary computer for home use. We keep ours in the kitchen. When we need to look up some information from the Web, like a recipe or a calendar event, or check our email, it's perfectly fine. It's very fast. It's stable. It has never crashed or hung. (That's a a sharp and welcome contrast with the Android tablet that Google gave me at I/O last year. That tablet, a 10" Samsung Galaxy Tab, crashes and hangs almost every time I use it, regardless of which apps I'm using. It's one of the most frustrating and least reliable computing devices I've used in years.) But at $300, the Chromebooks are still not going to sell. For $100 more, you can get the sexiest new computing device out there, the iPad. It's got hundreds of thousands of available apps and is so intuitive that even babies can figure out how it works.  For about the same price as a Chromebook — $300 — you can get a Windows netbook. It won't be pretty but it will run Windows apps and connect to tens of thousands of different devices. For $100 less, you can buy a pretty decent tablet from Amazon, the Kindle Fire. It isn't as pretty and won't run as many apps as the Apple or Windows devices, but it's easy to use, comes from a trusted consumer brand, and has a good store of available content for it. The only way Chromebooks will take off is if wireless data providers give them away for free and make the money by charging for data, just as they've done with phones for years. Google can encourage this by subsidizing the hardware to the point that OEMs like Samsung and carriers both go along. Google ought to stop pretending it's trying to build a new revenue-generating business. The Chromebook will be a success if it drives more users to the Web where Google makes its money, and away from desktop applications, where Microsoft rules. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:"If You Play Golf With Steve Ballmer And He Loses A Five-Cent Bet, He's Pissy For Next Week"THE MICROSOFT INVESTOR: Finally Someone Confirms A Nokia Windows 8 TabletAmazon Is Going To Be Totally Clobbered In Smartphones

Here's Amazon's Plan To Attract More Developers To The Kindle Fire (AMZN)

Amazon is testing a system that will allow tablet users to make in-app purchases, reports Bloomberg. The system would allow for a subscription-based purchase as well as a one-time purchase of some sort of virtual good. Google and Apple have held strong positions in this arena for a while, so Amazon is likely pursuing this as a means to make the Kindle Fire a more formidable entry in the tablet market. Having the ability to generate additional revenue after an app has been sold to the user will also help make the Kindle Fire a more attractive platform to developers. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Google To Launch "Semantic Search," Understanding The Actual Meaning Of WordsTHE APPLE INVESTOR: Corporations Buying Tablets Looking Nearly Exclusively At iPadThis Startup Is Fixing A Major Problem With The Kindle Fire

Foxconn Lands Contract To Produce Tons Of Next-Gen Kindle Fires In 2012 (AMZN)

Foxconn Electronics has received an order from Amazon to produce "next generation" Kindle Fire tablets, DigiTimes reports. The shipments will begin in the "first half of 2012," which is pretty soon considering the first Kindle Fire hasn't even launched yet. The Kindle Fire goes on sale November 15 for $199, and is produced by Quanta Computer. Combined with its iPhone 4S and iPad 2 shipments, Foxconn could see 15-20% revenue growth in Q4, DigiTimes' sources point out. While we've heard rumors that Amazon would produce a larger Kindle Fire, we don't yet know anything about the next generation model. Don't Miss: 10 Reasons Kindle Fire Will Make A Dent In The iPad Market > Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Too Little, Too Late: Motorola Will Start Selling A $400 XoomMeet Apple's "Chief A-Hole," The "Polarizing" Genius Behind iOS, Scott ForstallPeter Relan Explains Why Facebook Will Have A Hard Time Winning In Mobile

CHART OF THE DAY: The iPad Is Still The Only Tablet That Matters (AAPL, GOOG, RIMM)

It's been more than a year since Apple's iPad started shipping, and around the world, it's still overwhelmingly the only tablet that matters. ComScore just released a bunch of stats about traffic consumption on non-PC devices in 13 countries, including tablets, smartphones, and other devices, such as the iPod touch. We analyzed comScore's data to focus just on tablet usage, and charted the iPad's traffic share in each country. It was 95% or higher in 12 of the 13 countries, with Android the second-place finisher in most countries (and "other" in Canada, home of RIM). Of note: China isn't one of the countries reported by comScore in this data. That could be a market where Android does particularly well. We'll see. And, of course, plenty more competition is on the way from the likes of HP, Microsoft, etc. But for now, the iPad stands alone.

Follow the Chart Of The Day on Twitter: @chartoftheday Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Apple's YEAR-OLD iPhone 4 Is Still The Top-Selling SmartphoneHarry Potter And "Pottermore" Could Force Amazon To Open Up The KindleTHE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Google Makes The Most Sense To Put Hulu Out Of Its Misery And Just Buy It

RIM Has To Cut The Price Of The BlackBerry PlayBook To $200 (RIMM, AMZN)

Research In Motion is selling its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet for $200. Steve Yelvington put it best on Twitter: "Call it a Kindle Fire sale." The problem is, thanks to Amazon $200 for the PlayBook isn't even a good deal. You're better off getting the Kindle Fire. At least you'll get great content and some good apps. Don't Miss: RIM Isn't Making Any Money On The PlayBook

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Why Amazon's Tablet Business Is Nowhere Near As Good As Apple's (Yet) (AMZN, AAPL)

Amazon just disappointed Wall Street with a big revenue miss in the last quarter of 2011. But more interesting story comes when you contrast how Amazon is talking (or not talking) about the Kindle Fire, versus how Apple talks about the iPad. Amazon gave no sales stats for the Kindle or Kindle Fire, saying only that sales of the entire Kindle line was up 177%. But overall expenses were up $4.7 billion from last year's quarter -- that's more than revenue, which grew $4.5 billion. Amazon doesn't break out expenses or revenue by product line (Kindle hardware sales are lumped in with the broad Electronics and General Merchandise category), but if Amazon is really losing at least $5 per Kindle Fire sold, it makes sense that expenses are going up faster than revenue. As a result, net income dropped 58% from last year, to $177 million. Contrast that with Apple: in its Q4, the company sold 15.4 million iPads. Apple doesn't break out profit by product line either, but it showed a huge overall profit of $13.06 billion -- the fourth largest quarterly profit for any company, ever (the top three are all oil companies). But that's exactly the plan. Amazon is not a hardware company. It never expected to make money on the Kindle Fire. The whole idea is to seed the world with these tablets which are primed for shopping and consuming media -- all sold by Amazon. The value of a Kindle Fire isn't in the profit margin. It's in the lifetime value of each customer captured. Investors who buy Amazon stock are betting that lifetime value will be way more than the $5 or so that Amazon is losing on each sale now. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Motorola Sells One Million Tablets All Last YearLIVE: Amazon Blows Q4, Stock Plunges 8% After HoursCHART OF THE DAY: The Kindle Fire Is The Most Important Android Tablet For App Makers

Amazon Will Lose $50 For Every Kindle Fire Sold, Says Analyst Gene Munster (AAPL, AMZN)

How the heck is Amazon going to make money on the Kindle Fire if it costs just $200? It's not! Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates Amazon will lose $50 per Kindle Fire sold. So how will it make money down the road? In volume? Probably not. Munster doesn't say, but we'd guess Amazon thinks it can earn back those $50 (and more) through sales of books, apps, video, and other purchases on Amazon.com. Also, this is Amazon, not Apple, we're talking about. It has a history of losing money in the short term to make money in the long term. Don't Miss: Apple Is No Longer The Only Tablet Maker That Matters Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Apple Is No Longer The Only Tablet Maker That MattersAmazon Reveals The Kindle Fire: A $199 Dagger Aimed Right At The Heart Of Tablet MarketHuge, Up Close Photos Of Amazon's New Kindle Tablet And Readers

Weird Report From Bloomberg Makes Amazon's Shares Tank For A Second (AMZN)

Amazon's shares tanked for a minute today when a Bloomberg report said it had fewer Prime subscribers than analysts expected. The trick about the report? It was based on data from early October, which is a month and a half before Amazon released the Kindle Fire, one of the key things driving Prime subscriptions. Every person that signs up to use a Kindle Fire, gets a month of Prime for free. If they forget to cancel the Prime membership at the end of the month, they're charged $79 for an annual subscription to the service which offers streaming and free two day shipping. Anyway, Amazon only had 3-5 million Prime members in October, according to Bloomberg. It wants to have 7-10 million users by the end of the year. The stock is down 1% on the news because analysts thought Amazon already had 10 million users. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Motorola Sells One Million Tablets All Last YearAmazon Blows Q4, Stock Plunges 9% After HoursCHART OF THE DAY: The Kindle Fire Is The Most Important Android Tablet For App Makers

Amazon's Kindle Division Is On The Hunt For An Expert In Web Browsing (AMZN)

Lab126, the Silicon Valley subsidiary that makes all of Amazon's hardware, posted a job listing for a WebKit development engineer last week. WebKit is the open source framework that Apple uses as the basis for Safari and Google uses for the Chrome browser. It's also the basis of what Amazon calls the "experimental" browser in the Kindle 3, which came out last year. Amazon could be looking for a WebkKit expert to help build better versions of Amazon's apps for other platforms. Except that the job listing came from Lab126, which builds hardware -- not from Amazon's main offices in Seattle. Plus, it's pretty clear that if Amazon wants to make a tablet to compete with the iPad and the crop of Android tablets out there, then an "experimental" browser won't cut it. See also: Here's Everything We Know About Amazon's Secret Tablet So Far. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Why The Amazon Tablet Will Be KillerNow Apple Is Talking About Buying HuluFacebook Investor Roger McNamee Explains Why Social Is Over