Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, was challenged by the onslaught of the tablet market in 2011-2013. Bezos is burdened with whether to stay focused on the e-reader market or to turn into the tablet industry. Despite not being an expert on the latter, Bezos turned into the tablet market. Having made that choice, Amazon delved into important and necessary decision-making as regards the selection of customer targets and on how to position its new product known as the Kindle Fire.
Mohanbir Sawhney; Joseph Owens; Pallavi Goodman
Harvard Business Review (KEL770-PDF-ENG)
February 14, 2014
Case questions answered:
After the launch of the Kindle Fire, Amazon has captured half of the non-Apple tablet market share, but the product is being sold at cost, and it is unsure whether content and commerce revenues would be able to make up for the hardware price subsidy. With other competing products such as Google Android Tablets, Apple’s iPad, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook entering the market, the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, needs to refine the strategy of Kindle Fire and increase growth. What strategies should he provide?
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Kindle Fire: Amazon‘s Heated Battle for the Tablet Market Case Answers
Executive Summary – Kindle Fire: Amazon‘s Heated Battle for the Tablet Market
After the launch of the Kindle Fire, Amazon has captured half of the non-Apple tablet market share, but the product is being sold at cost, and it is unsure whether content and commerce revenues would be able to make up for the hardware price subsidy.
With other competing products such as Google Android Tablets, Apple’s iPad, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook entering the market, the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, needs to refine the strategy of Kindle Fire.
The key tasks Amazon now faces are how the company should position the Kindle Fire in response to the new entrants in the tablet market, which segmentation of consumers should be the core target, and how it should be positioned against competing products.
After evaluating the 3 alternatives, it is recommended that Amazon position the product as the best digital textbook device and target college students to increase market share and achieve long-term sales growth.
Alternatives
Alternative 1: For college students who have a lot of readings and are unwilling to pay for the high prices of paper textbooks, the Kindle Fire is the best digital textbook device that offers cheap, easy-to-read digital textbooks and helps decrease financial and physical burden because…
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