31 ms·

Amazon has sold no more than 35,000 Fire phones, data suggests

212 points by wfjackson 12y ago

keehun 12y ago
Is it just me or is this hugely unsurprising? When I talk to most people (non-tech), Amazon is not high on people's minds as a place to get phones/plans.
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  Personally, I wouldn't even consider an Amazon "smart" device until it was at least gen 2. From what I understand, hey made big strides between the first and second gen Kindle Fire tablets. That being said, currently there's no real differentiator for this phone. Maybe they'll eventually do unlimited bandwidth deals for Prime video / music content? (or do they already have that?)
  - taeric 12y ago
    I can definitely agree that the gen 1 kindle fire left a lot to be desired. The latest offerings are quite nice, though. And, lets be honest, it isn't like the earlier versions of any android device are worth writing home about. Finally moved from a moto droidish era phone up to the moto g. It is truly impressive how far they have come.
    - 72deluxe 12y ago
      I wonder if it is Android itself that has made strides? I have been using it since the G1 and 2.3 felt different to 1.6, but the real change for me came with 4.0 (I had 3 on my Xoom but it felt awkward). I am not sure what whizz-bang features they have been adding in recently, as everything post 4.1 looks different for different's sake to me; more investigation likely required. Do you think the hardware has got better with the Motorola, or just the software and general less clunkiness?
      - taeric 12y ago
        Hard to say, honestly. I do know the moto g is impressive. Though, I have to confess I actually prefer the kindle software.
  - fixedd 12y ago
    Our purchase of the first-gen Kindle Fires convinced my wife and myself not to buy any further iterations. There are 9 tablets in our house... guess which two haven't been powered on in the past year.
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  Amazon probably thought they could repeat their success with the Kindle (which itself seems quite limited to me).
  - fixedd 12y ago
    The Kindle was a super nice device (to me) and in the days before tablet-ubiquity I'd see them everywhere. I'd never cared for the UX of ebooks until I got one, now I can't stand dead-trees. The Kindle Fire, on the other hand... I wish I'd never ordered the ones my wife and I own. Most expensive paperweights we have.
    - 72deluxe 12y ago
      What is not useful about the Kindle Fire? I have never seen one in the flesh. Do you still find that you use your original Kindle, the eInk display one I presume? I am trying to get rid of the books that I have and digitise them or get digital copies if I can. I ought to use one of those book-scanning services to digitise them and make the house empty. I feel bad getting rid of real books given the effort someone has gone through to write them, but they do get recycled I suppose.
- MBCook 12y ago
  It's not very surprising it's not selling well, but it's a bit surprising that the number is that low. Given how big Amazon's brand is and all the ads I see on TV you'd think they could sucker more people in than that. I wouldn't expect the 10m numbers that an iPhone pulls in an opening weekend, but they couldn't even break 50k let alone 100k.
e40 12y ago
I bought a Fire tablet and I swore "never again" after that experience. I sold it on Craig's list and bought a Nexus 7. Couldn't be happier. The fact that Amazon has a separate store really ticked me off. Lots of apps I was used to on my phone couldn't be used on the Fire. And, the fact that the Fire was based on Android 2.x and really never got better, well, that was really annoying, too. So, when their phone was announced, even before I knew one thing about it, I was completely uninterested.
- r00fus 12y ago
  I'm not exactly a fan of the Fire tablets, but isn't the latest Fire OS based on AOSP 4.0?
  - benologist 12y ago
    There's a more modern Android backing it but you still can't install the Play store so you're restricted to Amazon's much smaller appstore.
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    Given their history, I think many of us would wager that the OS will be out of date within 1-2 years, even if they are up to date as of launch.
  - bellerocky 12y ago
    I own a Fire HDX 7" and it is a pretty amazing tablet. The many apps that integrate with Google Play Service for no good reason, like a password manager like 1Password, is pretty depressing though. I can't get the latest version of it. I would probably buy an Android tablet if I didn't have so many videos on Amazon's video store. I wish they would just make their videos available on Android. Amazon is supposed to be platform independent but they haven't made any videos available on Android and it fucking sucks. They're the only company that makes their content available across devices, and now they're not even doing that anymore. Why can't videos be portable. It sucks. It really sucks, and they're not doing this in the best interest of their customers.
dustin1114 12y ago
After hearing about the idea of a phone from Amazon, I really thought they'd do more. I like to buy things from Amazon (like many here probably do), and thought that the phone would be competitively priced. It wasn't in my mind; and with only one major US carrier (AT&T) that it's being sold under, the customer base is even smaller. I love the ability of my current unlocked Nexus 4 to switch to another carrier or MVNO. Call me spoiled on the Nexus devices... How would I be sold on the Fire Phone, Amazon? Allow the phone to be unlocked and lower off-contract price. Then, I'd consider it. I like the phone's features, but if the value isn't there, then I'll pass.
- kevinday 12y ago
  The lack of unlocking really surprised me. We bought one for testing that some of our mobile software would run on it, so we got the no-contract version. Even if you pay full retail price, it's still locked to AT&T. That's just blatant foot-shooting. If someone's going to pay you full price, it shouldn't be locked. (And yes we tried getting Amazon to give us the unlock code. They said their contract with AT&T didn't allow it.)
  - Danieru 12y ago
    Sounds like AT&T was the only carrier willing to give them the time of day. I doubt Amazon really wanted to go single source.
kin 12y ago
I was unimpressed when the "feature" in the teaser videos turned out to just be a gimmicky 3D effect. What really turns me off on the product is the currently airing commercial on the radio where this girl is excited about all the notifications on her phone letting her know which book or movie she should buy next. If there are any owners here on HN, I'm really curious what about the phone was alluring in any way.
- saosebastiao 12y ago
  I haven't bought one, and after playing with them a bit I have decided not to buy one, but I will sing its only praise: It is the only non-apple phone that even approaches the level of apple's build quality. The Samsungs and HTCs are kindergarten toys in comparison.
  - DAddYE 12y ago
    AMEN! To go be in parent OT the saddest spot ever seen in my life is the samsung gold plater with the song: "Im so fancy". Really ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY
  - SixSigma 12y ago
    My Sony Z1 is a quality piece of product.
- uptown 12y ago
  I don't have one, but the only compelling feature it offered was advanced built-in OCR with an API.
  - gress 12y ago
    What is that used for?
    - aroch 12y ago
      Buying things on amazon
rbanffy 12y ago
On the bright side, it's 1000 times more successful than the Kin ;-)
- guardian5x 12y ago
  Barely, considering the Kin was not really available to buy (at least not in Europe, and only partially in the US)
TrainedMonkey 12y ago
Fire phone was a flop from the start. Substandard hardware and premium price tag do not mesh well together. Amazon thought that they could make software killer feature and sell phone trough massive advertising and sheer brand power. That is a tall order, and I am not surprised they failed. However, if I learned anything about Amazon it is their tenacity. They will keep improving and pouring billions into Fire until it works, like they've done with their Cloud business. I think pulling HP Touchpad is not an option because they are too much invested in mobile strategy. So with all that said, while I am not surprised that first Fire phone flopped, I eventually expect Amazon to have at least limited success.
georgemcbay 12y ago
As a huge fan of Amazon in general (as a customer), I still find it difficult to believe they released a hobbled Android phone that is AT&T exclusive and starts at $650 into a world where the $350 fully unlocked Nexus 5 already existed for almost 8 months prior to their release. I'm just really seriously confused by what they were thinking here. It is almost like seeing one of those "fail" videos where a kid piledrives his friend off the roof into the backyard and both kids end up badly injured -- of course that was the end result, there was no reasonably plausible path from the starting point to any sort of non-failure ending.
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  My honest assessment, (having worked for a company that supplies parts and SW to Lab126 [1] in the past) is that the hardware design and specs were nailed down quite some time ago, but they took so long to execute and launch that the world they launched into was vastly different from the one they had targeting against when they first started designing the phone and coming up with the battle plans. [1] Lab126 is Amazon's hardware arm that makes these phones.
  - phaus 12y ago
    You are probably right about the specs being nailed down a long time ago, but I don't think it really would have made a difference. The only possible scenario where Amazon can reliably sell smartphones at a price of $650 would be if they scored exclusive rights to distribute the iPhone 6.
    - hkmurakami 12y ago
      I think they could have deluded themselves into thinking that a $650 phone would work much more easily 2 years ago than today, for instance.
      - phaus 12y ago
        I can see how that could be the case. They wouldn't have had my $650 even two years ago, but its possible they would have had a better result than they did in 2014. In the future, I think Amazon still may have a shot at producing a decent phone at a reasonable price. Hell, I just bought a Galaxy Nexus (from Amazon) to replace the LG G2 that I broke (didn't feel like spending $600). In spite of its age, its hands-down a better phone than the G2. If they get the form-factor and the software right, there are lots of people who won't even care if the CPU isn't the latest and greatest iteration.
sssilver 12y ago
I give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, but I still don't understand their reasoning behind this whole undertaking.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I don't think it's complicated, they see a lot of money in media sales and want to have a set of devices where they are the more visible provider. A few hundred million dollars developing hardware is a rounding error on their current media revenues (which I realize sounds a bit ridiculous, but there it is).
  - phaus 12y ago
    Amazon as a whole has razor thin margins. They can't afford to squander hundreds of millions of dollars on anything.
    - eclipxe 12y ago
      You don't get it.
    - wiredfool 12y ago
      Amazon had razor thin margins because they're spending hundreds of millions on a bunch of different projects that they expect will be the the future of collecting money for stuff and services. If they stopped that investment, they'd be reasonably profitable. But right now, it's funding their world domination plans.
      - phaus 12y ago
        I fully understand that Amazon invests in these types of projects because they are focusing on growth. The original claim was that hundreds of millions of dollars is a trivial amount of money for Amazon to spend even if a project is a failure. I was simply stating that this is not the case at all. If Amazon has spent 100s of millions of dollars on a smartphone program that turns out to be a failure then it is going to be a painful experience for them. I'm not saying that Amazon has spent $100 million+ on smartphones. I'm also not saying that the project is a failure. I'm simply responding to the hypothetical claim that 100s of millions of dollars isn't a significant amount of money to Amazon.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I've recently seen the phone advertised with a year of free 'Prime' membership (aka a $100 value). Not really very compelling, however if they gave you a year of Prime and also that none of your Prime Video or Prime Audio streaming counted against your Data cap, that would be an interesting proposition. Frankly I was kind of surprised they didn't just lead with that.
- benatkin 12y ago
  If you're on the west coast, Prime now means having to deal with OnTrac: www.yelp.com/biz/ontrac-south-san-francisco So it's really not a great deal.
  - techsupporter 12y ago
    Shipping companies are like mail transport agents: all of them suck, but, usually, one sucks less for your particular use. I've had a bunch of packages delivered by OnTrac, UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. All of them have screwed it up at some point but all of them have gotten the vast majority (more than 90%) of deliveries exactly right.
    - a3n 12y ago
      My favorite for my particular use has been FedEx, because I can reroute any delivery to one of their many outlets and have it waiting for me on my way home, rather than having to go to some distribution center after an inevitably missed delivery (I work the same hours they do).
  - kenjackson 12y ago
    OnTrac in Seattle works great. It often means my two day shipping will arrive next day (although sometimes at 9pm, but still nice to get a day early).
    - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
      Yep, I generally have much better experiences with Ontrac than FedEx in Seattle.
stephengoodwin 12y ago
Any idea how many Amazon ordered to be manufactured?
mason240 12y ago
Just to put it into perspective, Amazon has 132,600 employees. So if a full 25% of Amazon employees decided to be company men/women, that alone would account for all their sales.
- knodi123 12y ago
  does that include the poorly paid peons working themselves to death in the warehouses that you're not allowed to even bring a smartphone into?
  - g8gggu89 12y ago
    Can you cite this? Or is this just drivel?
    - rurounijones 12y ago
      http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/amazon-strikers-take-their-fight-to-seattle/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/amazon-strikers-tak... Are the two cases that come to mind. (First link may not be Amazon, but appears to be representative of conditions in warehouses for the pickers and it links to plenty of other sources that ARE amazon)
    - matrixagent 12y ago
      This issue is so universally known by now that it's almost insulting for you to even question it as "drivel". How can you be not aware of these issues? http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-... http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/ http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/amazon-warehouse-workers-lunch-breaks_n_5283329.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/amazon-warehouse-wo... http://recode.net/2014/06/30/amazon-was-a-prison-says-former-worker/ http://recode.net/2014/06/30/amazon-was-a-prison-says-former... http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...
chj 12y ago
Amazon tried to take Android and made it their own.Now it looks that it's not even worth the trouble. I have to say they did a great job regarding their developer support, but it doesn't help that they have a very small market and are still using check for international payment.
madoublet 12y ago
I don't think there is a market for a phone that is $600+ that is not an iPhone. I think the battle going forward will be for the best $200 and $300 phone (unlocked). If Amazon would have hit either of these price points, the product would be much more compelling.
- Gustomaximus 12y ago
  The flagship models like Galaxy & Note have a market. Some people always want the best. They also give the company an opportunity to showcase their prowess while they sell more modest models to the mass. That said the way things are going the difference between a $250 and a $600 phone are becoming less meaningful for current feature sets.
- Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
  In the US maybe that's true. In my country (Spain), the Samsung flagships outsell the iPhone by a mile, and the S5 was around €650 ($850) at launch.
  - 72deluxe 12y ago
    Very interesting, thanks. Here in the UK I see many many iPhones but also many Samsung devices, and few others. Which flagship was it, out of interest?
    - Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
      Currently the Samsung Galaxy S5. But the S4, S3, and probably the previous ones in the Galaxy S line also outsold the corresponding iPhones here. For example, here is a 2013 list of the top selling phones in Spain (list on the left): http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista-de-smartphones-mas-vendidos-en-espana-en-2013-iphone-5s-el-mejor-valorado http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista-de-... As you can see, that year's Samsung flagship (Galaxy S3) makes the top 10, and the iPhone doesn't, although the iPhone is on top of the right list (% buyers who give the phone a 9 or 10 out of 10).
  - 12y ago
cix 12y ago
A lot of people on here are defending Amazon "because they take risks". Yea of course they do, they burn capital like a startup; when they have been in business for ~20 years. That is just negligence, not persistence. Sure they took a risk here, but it was vastly un-calculated and if it took them awhile to develop the product it still doesn't justify the attempt to win the high end as a newcomer in the space with a undeveloped app marketplace.
- justicezyx 12y ago
  The most ungrounded bullshit I have ever read on HN...
- MBlume 12y ago
  > Yea of course they do, they burn capital like a startup; when they have been in business for ~20 years. That is just negligence, not persistence. If I'd bought and held Amazon 10 years ago, would I be kicking myself now?
  - cix 12y ago
    No, but that's not the point. The e-commerce space is very different than the product space. They are applying the same logic in both, which is a mistake.
Lazare 12y ago
I was excited about the Fire Phone because—without knowing anything about it, but knowing Amazon's overall strategy—I thought it might end up being some very solid hardware at a very competive price. The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android experience. ...but as soon as hard details started coming out, it was clear that they were going for the exact opposite strategy. Lackluster hardware, a premium price, and a doubling down on their attempts to set themselves apart from Android. And the problem with this is that it's a very stupid plan. Here, try this experiment: Walk up to someone and say: "Hey, let's sell a not-very-good Android phone at iPhone prices, after removing some of the best Android features and adding some silly hardware gimmicks that nobody will like or use!" If the person you are talking to doesn't burst into laughter, then you are talking to Jeff Bezos, because there can't be two people who think that's a sensible plan.
- camillomiller 12y ago
  >> "The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android. In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?" Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose. That's also why I don't see a failure of this phone as a tragic event for Amazon. It's just a piece of their strategy that didn't worked out. More like a "big test" gone wrong, than a commercial disgrace. I guess that there will be a write off and a shrug, with no hard impacts on the bottom line.
  - wutbrodo 12y ago
    > In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?" Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose. I think the idea is that there's a trade-off between ineffectiveness of this strategy and screw-the-userness, and the parent comment was thinking that maybe they'd realize they should move more down the spectrum towards a better product for the user (i.e. that they were coming on too strong with the lock-in). Aside from whatever ethical qualms you might have about various degrees of lock-in, it's not unreasonable to think that people didn't respond favorably to the level of lock-in Amazon tried with their tablets: hence the hope that they might try an alternative strategy of lock-in (or another way to promote their products) without sacrificing user experience. As an example of two points on the spectrum, imagine a comparison between shipping Chrome that only allows Google Search in the omnibox and the way Chrome actually is, which allows you to pick your search engine. Obviously Google is getting some advantage out of even a Chrome browser in which the search engine can be changed, but it's clearly further along the spectrum towards better user experience (and less effective lock-in) than a Google-Search-only omnibox would be.
stevebot 12y ago
On one side I am considering the following: 1. Amazon has had financial success with the Kindle Fire http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle-ecosystem-3-2014-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle-ecos... They do not have market share, but Amazon's existing venture into Android tablets has started to pay off. You can see that in 2011 the payoff was no where as big as now. 2. This is their first phone Do we really expect their first phone to be successful? Its a huge marketplace that will take a lot to break into. I can't think of many net new smart phone makers besides Amazon in the US market. They need to get cell providers to buy into this phone. If they can't do that they are screwed imo. All that said these numbers are tragic if true.
moca 12y ago
In a company like Amazon, only one person can push for such a product, eg Jeff Bezos himself. For whatever reason, he just liked the product idea. Very few people would appreciate such a product as sales number shows. It is just a worse version of New Coke without Classic Coke.
- blisterpeanuts 12y ago
  He must be surrounded by yes-men, because you'd think there would have been some push-back from people who know what they're talking about. Elite techies and brand specifiers are panning the Fire phone; why didn't Amazon reach out to such people sooner and find out what features they are willing to pay for? The Fire phone is hobbled right out of the gate by a non-standard Android version and a non-Google app store. They have to offer something more compelling to customers than "it will scan things into your Amazon shopping cart". As others have suggested, bundling 5 years of Prime membership would have been a nice start. One year - not so much. I, like thousands of others, am wondering whether or not to renew my Prime at $99. Do I really need to spend that much money just to spend more money? Starting to doubt....
alokdhari 12y ago
I would have bought the phone if it came with lifetime or say 5 years of prime and free videos and games and what not. And I reckon, Amazon could easily do that but they didn't for some reason. Anyway, lesson learner I guess..
gagabity 12y ago
Seems like a very unreliable way to obtain sales numbers.
- charlesarthur 12y ago
  If you know a better way to get sales figures relating to Amazon products, please let me know.
photorized 12y ago
I've been trying to estimate their sales from monitoring twitter activity. Given the very low volume (200-600 mentions daily) since launch, I believe that low sales figure.
- untog 12y ago
  Number of tweets seems like it would be a highly inaccurate measure of almost anything.
blueskin_ 12y ago
It's almost as if they thought people would want to spend $700 for the privilege of giving Amazon more money.
bhartzer 12y ago
I'm surprised that the Fire phone hasn't done better... considering that when I talk to my teenager and other teens they all want a Fire phone. Yet they actually carry iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S5 phones.
- freehunter 12y ago
  I want a Windows Phone. But I have an iPhone. I had a Windows Phone and still ended up getting an iPhone. I also want a Ford Raptor SVT, but drive a Fiat. Sometimes we don't use what we want, even if we can afford it, because what we want just isn't practical. Even though we wish it was. If that were the case, I'd still be using my Palm Pre.
saturdaysaint 12y ago
I'm mystified when big companies think they can just barge into a new product category by slapping their name on a product and offering marginal benefits over entrenched competition. This definitely brings the Zune to mind. Newsflash: you need an edge to compete! Amazon needs to drop Fire OS and just make a damn good Android phone with some well thought through customizations/exclusive apps for a great price. Until then, I won't even believe that their own programmers are actually using these.
aaron987 12y ago
I'm really not surprised at the lack of interest in the Fire phone. Even from the beginning, all of the advertising was focused on how the phone makes it easier to buy stuff from Amazon. They have to focus on how the device is creating some sort of value for their end users. Streamlining the process of buying products does little to add value. Instead, it looks like a selfish attempt by the company to increase sales. Nobody cares if a product is good for the company, they buy a product because it is good for them. If the Fire does have a value proposition, the advertising has done a miserable job of pointing that out. I haven't actually played with the phone yet, so I can't say if it is a bad device or just bad marketing. But I'm not surprised at the lukewarm response it has gotten.

212 points by wfjackson 12y ago

Is it just me or is this hugely unsurprising? When I talk to most people (non-tech), Amazon is not high on people's minds as a place to get phones/plans.

hkmurakami 12y ago
Personally, I wouldn't even consider an Amazon "smart" device until it was at least gen 2. From what I understand, hey made big strides between the first and second gen Kindle Fire tablets. That being said, currently there's no real differentiator for this phone. Maybe they'll eventually do unlimited bandwidth deals for Prime video / music content? (or do they already have that?)
- taeric 12y ago
  I can definitely agree that the gen 1 kindle fire left a lot to be desired. The latest offerings are quite nice, though. And, lets be honest, it isn't like the earlier versions of any android device are worth writing home about. Finally moved from a moto droidish era phone up to the moto g. It is truly impressive how far they have come.
  - 72deluxe 12y ago
    I wonder if it is Android itself that has made strides? I have been using it since the G1 and 2.3 felt different to 1.6, but the real change for me came with 4.0 (I had 3 on my Xoom but it felt awkward). I am not sure what whizz-bang features they have been adding in recently, as everything post 4.1 looks different for different's sake to me; more investigation likely required. Do you think the hardware has got better with the Motorola, or just the software and general less clunkiness?
    - taeric 12y ago
      Hard to say, honestly. I do know the moto g is impressive. Though, I have to confess I actually prefer the kindle software.
- fixedd 12y ago
  Our purchase of the first-gen Kindle Fires convinced my wife and myself not to buy any further iterations. There are 9 tablets in our house... guess which two haven't been powered on in the past year.
w1ntermute 12y ago
Amazon probably thought they could repeat their success with the Kindle (which itself seems quite limited to me).
- fixedd 12y ago
  The Kindle was a super nice device (to me) and in the days before tablet-ubiquity I'd see them everywhere. I'd never cared for the UX of ebooks until I got one, now I can't stand dead-trees. The Kindle Fire, on the other hand... I wish I'd never ordered the ones my wife and I own. Most expensive paperweights we have.
  - 72deluxe 12y ago
    What is not useful about the Kindle Fire? I have never seen one in the flesh. Do you still find that you use your original Kindle, the eInk display one I presume? I am trying to get rid of the books that I have and digitise them or get digital copies if I can. I ought to use one of those book-scanning services to digitise them and make the house empty. I feel bad getting rid of real books given the effort someone has gone through to write them, but they do get recycled I suppose.
MBCook 12y ago
It's not very surprising it's not selling well, but it's a bit surprising that the number is that low. Given how big Amazon's brand is and all the ads I see on TV you'd think they could sucker more people in than that. I wouldn't expect the 10m numbers that an iPhone pulls in an opening weekend, but they couldn't even break 50k let alone 100k.

e40 12y ago

I bought a Fire tablet and I swore "never again" after that experience. I sold it on Craig's list and bought a Nexus 7. Couldn't be happier. The fact that Amazon has a separate store really ticked me off. Lots of apps I was used to on my phone couldn't be used on the Fire. And, the fact that the Fire was based on Android 2.x and really never got better, well, that was really annoying, too. So, when their phone was announced, even before I knew one thing about it, I was completely uninterested.

r00fus 12y ago
I'm not exactly a fan of the Fire tablets, but isn't the latest Fire OS based on AOSP 4.0?
- benologist 12y ago
  There's a more modern Android backing it but you still can't install the Play store so you're restricted to Amazon's much smaller appstore.
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  Given their history, I think many of us would wager that the OS will be out of date within 1-2 years, even if they are up to date as of launch.
- bellerocky 12y ago
  I own a Fire HDX 7" and it is a pretty amazing tablet. The many apps that integrate with Google Play Service for no good reason, like a password manager like 1Password, is pretty depressing though. I can't get the latest version of it. I would probably buy an Android tablet if I didn't have so many videos on Amazon's video store. I wish they would just make their videos available on Android. Amazon is supposed to be platform independent but they haven't made any videos available on Android and it fucking sucks. They're the only company that makes their content available across devices, and now they're not even doing that anymore. Why can't videos be portable. It sucks. It really sucks, and they're not doing this in the best interest of their customers.

dustin1114 12y ago

After hearing about the idea of a phone from Amazon, I really thought they'd do more. I like to buy things from Amazon (like many here probably do), and thought that the phone would be competitively priced. It wasn't in my mind; and with only one major US carrier (AT&T) that it's being sold under, the customer base is even smaller. I love the ability of my current unlocked Nexus 4 to switch to another carrier or MVNO. Call me spoiled on the Nexus devices... How would I be sold on the Fire Phone, Amazon? Allow the phone to be unlocked and lower off-contract price. Then, I'd consider it. I like the phone's features, but if the value isn't there, then I'll pass.

kevinday 12y ago
The lack of unlocking really surprised me. We bought one for testing that some of our mobile software would run on it, so we got the no-contract version. Even if you pay full retail price, it's still locked to AT&T. That's just blatant foot-shooting. If someone's going to pay you full price, it shouldn't be locked. (And yes we tried getting Amazon to give us the unlock code. They said their contract with AT&T didn't allow it.)
- Danieru 12y ago
  Sounds like AT&T was the only carrier willing to give them the time of day. I doubt Amazon really wanted to go single source.

kin 12y ago

I was unimpressed when the "feature" in the teaser videos turned out to just be a gimmicky 3D effect. What really turns me off on the product is the currently airing commercial on the radio where this girl is excited about all the notifications on her phone letting her know which book or movie she should buy next. If there are any owners here on HN, I'm really curious what about the phone was alluring in any way.

saosebastiao 12y ago
I haven't bought one, and after playing with them a bit I have decided not to buy one, but I will sing its only praise: It is the only non-apple phone that even approaches the level of apple's build quality. The Samsungs and HTCs are kindergarten toys in comparison.
- DAddYE 12y ago
  AMEN! To go be in parent OT the saddest spot ever seen in my life is the samsung gold plater with the song: "Im so fancy". Really ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY
- SixSigma 12y ago
  My Sony Z1 is a quality piece of product.
uptown 12y ago
I don't have one, but the only compelling feature it offered was advanced built-in OCR with an API.
- gress 12y ago
  What is that used for?
  - aroch 12y ago
    Buying things on amazon

rbanffy 12y ago

On the bright side, it's 1000 times more successful than the Kin ;-)

guardian5x 12y ago
Barely, considering the Kin was not really available to buy (at least not in Europe, and only partially in the US)

TrainedMonkey 12y ago

Fire phone was a flop from the start. Substandard hardware and premium price tag do not mesh well together. Amazon thought that they could make software killer feature and sell phone trough massive advertising and sheer brand power. That is a tall order, and I am not surprised they failed. However, if I learned anything about Amazon it is their tenacity. They will keep improving and pouring billions into Fire until it works, like they've done with their Cloud business. I think pulling HP Touchpad is not an option because they are too much invested in mobile strategy. So with all that said, while I am not surprised that first Fire phone flopped, I eventually expect Amazon to have at least limited success.

georgemcbay 12y ago

As a huge fan of Amazon in general (as a customer), I still find it difficult to believe they released a hobbled Android phone that is AT&T exclusive and starts at $650 into a world where the $350 fully unlocked Nexus 5 already existed for almost 8 months prior to their release. I'm just really seriously confused by what they were thinking here. It is almost like seeing one of those "fail" videos where a kid piledrives his friend off the roof into the backyard and both kids end up badly injured -- of course that was the end result, there was no reasonably plausible path from the starting point to any sort of non-failure ending.

hkmurakami 12y ago
My honest assessment, (having worked for a company that supplies parts and SW to Lab126 [1] in the past) is that the hardware design and specs were nailed down quite some time ago, but they took so long to execute and launch that the world they launched into was vastly different from the one they had targeting against when they first started designing the phone and coming up with the battle plans. [1] Lab126 is Amazon's hardware arm that makes these phones.
- phaus 12y ago
  You are probably right about the specs being nailed down a long time ago, but I don't think it really would have made a difference. The only possible scenario where Amazon can reliably sell smartphones at a price of $650 would be if they scored exclusive rights to distribute the iPhone 6.
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    I think they could have deluded themselves into thinking that a $650 phone would work much more easily 2 years ago than today, for instance.
    - phaus 12y ago
      I can see how that could be the case. They wouldn't have had my $650 even two years ago, but its possible they would have had a better result than they did in 2014. In the future, I think Amazon still may have a shot at producing a decent phone at a reasonable price. Hell, I just bought a Galaxy Nexus (from Amazon) to replace the LG G2 that I broke (didn't feel like spending $600). In spite of its age, its hands-down a better phone than the G2. If they get the form-factor and the software right, there are lots of people who won't even care if the CPU isn't the latest and greatest iteration.

sssilver 12y ago

I give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, but I still don't understand their reasoning behind this whole undertaking.

maxerickson 12y ago
I don't think it's complicated, they see a lot of money in media sales and want to have a set of devices where they are the more visible provider. A few hundred million dollars developing hardware is a rounding error on their current media revenues (which I realize sounds a bit ridiculous, but there it is).
- phaus 12y ago
  Amazon as a whole has razor thin margins. They can't afford to squander hundreds of millions of dollars on anything.
  - eclipxe 12y ago
    You don't get it.
  - wiredfool 12y ago
    Amazon had razor thin margins because they're spending hundreds of millions on a bunch of different projects that they expect will be the the future of collecting money for stuff and services. If they stopped that investment, they'd be reasonably profitable. But right now, it's funding their world domination plans.
    - phaus 12y ago
      I fully understand that Amazon invests in these types of projects because they are focusing on growth. The original claim was that hundreds of millions of dollars is a trivial amount of money for Amazon to spend even if a project is a failure. I was simply stating that this is not the case at all. If Amazon has spent 100s of millions of dollars on a smartphone program that turns out to be a failure then it is going to be a painful experience for them. I'm not saying that Amazon has spent $100 million+ on smartphones. I'm also not saying that the project is a failure. I'm simply responding to the hypothetical claim that 100s of millions of dollars isn't a significant amount of money to Amazon.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I've recently seen the phone advertised with a year of free 'Prime' membership (aka a $100 value). Not really very compelling, however if they gave you a year of Prime and also that none of your Prime Video or Prime Audio streaming counted against your Data cap, that would be an interesting proposition. Frankly I was kind of surprised they didn't just lead with that.

benatkin 12y ago
If you're on the west coast, Prime now means having to deal with OnTrac: www.yelp.com/biz/ontrac-south-san-francisco So it's really not a great deal.
- techsupporter 12y ago
  Shipping companies are like mail transport agents: all of them suck, but, usually, one sucks less for your particular use. I've had a bunch of packages delivered by OnTrac, UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. All of them have screwed it up at some point but all of them have gotten the vast majority (more than 90%) of deliveries exactly right.
  - a3n 12y ago
    My favorite for my particular use has been FedEx, because I can reroute any delivery to one of their many outlets and have it waiting for me on my way home, rather than having to go to some distribution center after an inevitably missed delivery (I work the same hours they do).
- kenjackson 12y ago
  OnTrac in Seattle works great. It often means my two day shipping will arrive next day (although sometimes at 9pm, but still nice to get a day early).
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    Yep, I generally have much better experiences with Ontrac than FedEx in Seattle.

stephengoodwin 12y ago

Any idea how many Amazon ordered to be manufactured?

mason240 12y ago

Just to put it into perspective, Amazon has 132,600 employees. So if a full 25% of Amazon employees decided to be company men/women, that alone would account for all their sales.

knodi123 12y ago
does that include the poorly paid peons working themselves to death in the warehouses that you're not allowed to even bring a smartphone into?
- g8gggu89 12y ago
  Can you cite this? Or is this just drivel?
  - rurounijones 12y ago
    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/amazon-strikers-take-their-fight-to-seattle/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/amazon-strikers-tak... Are the two cases that come to mind. (First link may not be Amazon, but appears to be representative of conditions in warehouses for the pickers and it links to plenty of other sources that ARE amazon)
  - matrixagent 12y ago
    This issue is so universally known by now that it's almost insulting for you to even question it as "drivel". How can you be not aware of these issues? http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-... http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/ http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/amazon-warehouse-workers-lunch-breaks_n_5283329.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/amazon-warehouse-wo... http://recode.net/2014/06/30/amazon-was-a-prison-says-former-worker/ http://recode.net/2014/06/30/amazon-was-a-prison-says-former... http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...

chj 12y ago

Amazon tried to take Android and made it their own.Now it looks that it's not even worth the trouble. I have to say they did a great job regarding their developer support, but it doesn't help that they have a very small market and are still using check for international payment.

madoublet 12y ago

I don't think there is a market for a phone that is $600+ that is not an iPhone. I think the battle going forward will be for the best $200 and $300 phone (unlocked). If Amazon would have hit either of these price points, the product would be much more compelling.

Gustomaximus 12y ago
The flagship models like Galaxy & Note have a market. Some people always want the best. They also give the company an opportunity to showcase their prowess while they sell more modest models to the mass. That said the way things are going the difference between a $250 and a $600 phone are becoming less meaningful for current feature sets.
Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
In the US maybe that's true. In my country (Spain), the Samsung flagships outsell the iPhone by a mile, and the S5 was around €650 ($850) at launch.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  Very interesting, thanks. Here in the UK I see many many iPhones but also many Samsung devices, and few others. Which flagship was it, out of interest?
  - Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
    Currently the Samsung Galaxy S5. But the S4, S3, and probably the previous ones in the Galaxy S line also outsold the corresponding iPhones here. For example, here is a 2013 list of the top selling phones in Spain (list on the left): http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista-de-smartphones-mas-vendidos-en-espana-en-2013-iphone-5s-el-mejor-valorado http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista-de-... As you can see, that year's Samsung flagship (Galaxy S3) makes the top 10, and the iPhone doesn't, although the iPhone is on top of the right list (% buyers who give the phone a 9 or 10 out of 10).
- 12y ago

cix 12y ago

A lot of people on here are defending Amazon "because they take risks". Yea of course they do, they burn capital like a startup; when they have been in business for ~20 years. That is just negligence, not persistence. Sure they took a risk here, but it was vastly un-calculated and if it took them awhile to develop the product it still doesn't justify the attempt to win the high end as a newcomer in the space with a undeveloped app marketplace.

justicezyx 12y ago
The most ungrounded bullshit I have ever read on HN...
MBlume 12y ago
> Yea of course they do, they burn capital like a startup; when they have been in business for ~20 years. That is just negligence, not persistence. If I'd bought and held Amazon 10 years ago, would I be kicking myself now?
- cix 12y ago
  No, but that's not the point. The e-commerce space is very different than the product space. They are applying the same logic in both, which is a mistake.

Lazare 12y ago

I was excited about the Fire Phone because—without knowing anything about it, but knowing Amazon's overall strategy—I thought it might end up being some very solid hardware at a very competive price. The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android experience. ...but as soon as hard details started coming out, it was clear that they were going for the exact opposite strategy. Lackluster hardware, a premium price, and a doubling down on their attempts to set themselves apart from Android. And the problem with this is that it's a very stupid plan. Here, try this experiment: Walk up to someone and say: "Hey, let's sell a not-very-good Android phone at iPhone prices, after removing some of the best Android features and adding some silly hardware gimmicks that nobody will like or use!" If the person you are talking to doesn't burst into laughter, then you are talking to Jeff Bezos, because there can't be two people who think that's a sensible plan.

camillomiller 12y ago
>> "The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android. In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?" Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose. That's also why I don't see a failure of this phone as a tragic event for Amazon. It's just a piece of their strategy that didn't worked out. More like a "big test" gone wrong, than a commercial disgrace. I guess that there will be a write off and a shrug, with no hard impacts on the bottom line.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  > In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?" Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose. I think the idea is that there's a trade-off between ineffectiveness of this strategy and screw-the-userness, and the parent comment was thinking that maybe they'd realize they should move more down the spectrum towards a better product for the user (i.e. that they were coming on too strong with the lock-in). Aside from whatever ethical qualms you might have about various degrees of lock-in, it's not unreasonable to think that people didn't respond favorably to the level of lock-in Amazon tried with their tablets: hence the hope that they might try an alternative strategy of lock-in (or another way to promote their products) without sacrificing user experience. As an example of two points on the spectrum, imagine a comparison between shipping Chrome that only allows Google Search in the omnibox and the way Chrome actually is, which allows you to pick your search engine. Obviously Google is getting some advantage out of even a Chrome browser in which the search engine can be changed, but it's clearly further along the spectrum towards better user experience (and less effective lock-in) than a Google-Search-only omnibox would be.

stevebot 12y ago

On one side I am considering the following: 1. Amazon has had financial success with the Kindle Fire http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle-ecosystem-3-2014-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle-ecos... They do not have market share, but Amazon's existing venture into Android tablets has started to pay off. You can see that in 2011 the payoff was no where as big as now. 2. This is their first phone Do we really expect their first phone to be successful? Its a huge marketplace that will take a lot to break into. I can't think of many net new smart phone makers besides Amazon in the US market. They need to get cell providers to buy into this phone. If they can't do that they are screwed imo. All that said these numbers are tragic if true.

moca 12y ago

In a company like Amazon, only one person can push for such a product, eg Jeff Bezos himself. For whatever reason, he just liked the product idea. Very few people would appreciate such a product as sales number shows. It is just a worse version of New Coke without Classic Coke.

blisterpeanuts 12y ago
He must be surrounded by yes-men, because you'd think there would have been some push-back from people who know what they're talking about. Elite techies and brand specifiers are panning the Fire phone; why didn't Amazon reach out to such people sooner and find out what features they are willing to pay for? The Fire phone is hobbled right out of the gate by a non-standard Android version and a non-Google app store. They have to offer something more compelling to customers than "it will scan things into your Amazon shopping cart". As others have suggested, bundling 5 years of Prime membership would have been a nice start. One year - not so much. I, like thousands of others, am wondering whether or not to renew my Prime at $99. Do I really need to spend that much money just to spend more money? Starting to doubt....

alokdhari 12y ago

I would have bought the phone if it came with lifetime or say 5 years of prime and free videos and games and what not. And I reckon, Amazon could easily do that but they didn't for some reason. Anyway, lesson learner I guess..

gagabity 12y ago

Seems like a very unreliable way to obtain sales numbers.

charlesarthur 12y ago
If you know a better way to get sales figures relating to Amazon products, please let me know.

photorized 12y ago

I've been trying to estimate their sales from monitoring twitter activity. Given the very low volume (200-600 mentions daily) since launch, I believe that low sales figure.

untog 12y ago
Number of tweets seems like it would be a highly inaccurate measure of almost anything.

blueskin_ 12y ago

It's almost as if they thought people would want to spend $700 for the privilege of giving Amazon more money.

bhartzer 12y ago

I'm surprised that the Fire phone hasn't done better... considering that when I talk to my teenager and other teens they all want a Fire phone. Yet they actually carry iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S5 phones.

freehunter 12y ago
I want a Windows Phone. But I have an iPhone. I had a Windows Phone and still ended up getting an iPhone. I also want a Ford Raptor SVT, but drive a Fiat. Sometimes we don't use what we want, even if we can afford it, because what we want just isn't practical. Even though we wish it was. If that were the case, I'd still be using my Palm Pre.

saturdaysaint 12y ago

I'm mystified when big companies think they can just barge into a new product category by slapping their name on a product and offering marginal benefits over entrenched competition. This definitely brings the Zune to mind. Newsflash: you need an edge to compete! Amazon needs to drop Fire OS and just make a damn good Android phone with some well thought through customizations/exclusive apps for a great price. Until then, I won't even believe that their own programmers are actually using these.

aaron987 12y ago

I'm really not surprised at the lack of interest in the Fire phone. Even from the beginning, all of the advertising was focused on how the phone makes it easier to buy stuff from Amazon. They have to focus on how the device is creating some sort of value for their end users. Streamlining the process of buying products does little to add value. Instead, it looks like a selfish attempt by the company to increase sales. Nobody cares if a product is good for the company, they buy a product because it is good for them. If the Fire does have a value proposition, the advertising has done a miserable job of pointing that out. I haven't actually played with the phone yet, so I can't say if it is a bad device or just bad marketing. But I'm not surprised at the lukewarm response it has gotten.