Love your Kindle? And the new KindleFire tablet?
Well how about a Kindle phone?
Citigroup analysts Mark Mahaney and Kevin Chang believe that Amazon will release a smartphone some time next year.
“With the clear success of the Kindle e-Reader over the past 3 years, and Kindle Fire possibly succeeding in the low-priced Tablet market, we view this as the next logical step for Amazon," wrote Mahaney and Chang. "We continue to believe Amazon has now set its eyes on the Mobile (and Tablet) Media and Product.”
This would raise the stakes yet again in the Amazon-Apple-Google rivalry.
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Apple's iPhone and Google's Android are already fighting for mobile users, and the platform is seen as the key battleground for the two companies moving forward.
Users carry their phones with them everywhere, providing endless opportunities for advertisements, sales and other sources of profit.
Sales are of great interest to Amazon, which tends to price its hardware cheaply to lure more users. CEO Jeff Bezos & Co. are seen as being more concerned with getting customers to buy media from the Amazon store than profiting from hardware sales.
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That's why the two analysts estimate that the phone will sell for about what it costs to make — $150-$170 . By comparison, a normal brand would price this type of phone at around $240.