Not content with just having the most popular e-reader out there, Amazon now looks poised to enter the tablet market. A launch date for the code-named “Hollywood” tablet was expected sometime in August or September. But the online retailing giant could face some setbacks, as Apple has recently placed orders for a huge quantity of parts from suppliers across the Pacific.
Component suppliers in Taiwan are saying demand for iPad parts may make it harder for Amazon to get its own tablet built on schedule, not to mention meet the ambitious sale target of four million units by the end of the year. If they can get the product out, those figures may be achievable – the iPad sold one million units in its first month, the iPad2 two million. And that was with April and March release dates, respectively. Amazon could really move some tablets if they were debuted in the holiday season.
It’s likely the Amazon tablet will run on an Android operating system, feature a great processor, and supposedly sport a 10-inch color screen. Amazon already runs their own app store, the fittingly named “appstore”, which supplies apps for the Android platform. Rumors have it that the price for the “Hollywood” will hover around $400, and that the Kindle could see a price slash upon the tablet’s release.
There are even rumors that there is a second tablet in the works, code-named “Coyote.” How the two would differ is completely up for speculation.
All this comes on the heels of a recent Pew report that claims that the amount of American adults who own an e-reader has doubled since November of last year. This is much faster than predicted – surveys had thought e-reader ownership would be at 12 percent, which is where it is now, by 2012. Tablet ownership only grew by three percent in that same time, with eight percent of adults owning a tablet by May 2011. Obviously, the e-reader market is treating Amazon well (the Kindle is its biggest selling product). So why move into tablets?
It’s really only natural. Sure e-readers are doing great now: their prices are dropping and they are becoming accessible to many more people. Tablets are still high-priced items, but their time is coming, which makes Amazon smart for having a presence with both devices. It’s not too different from Apple’s evolution of handheld devices: from iPod to iPhone to iPad. Each new product encompassed some aspect of the previous. And consumers either trade up or supplement. It seems only natural that if Amazon is to evolve its gadgetry, a tablet is the next step after the Kindle.
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