After the iPad pretty much dominated the tablet market by every margin, lots of different companies tried their hands at alternative tablets and none of them really made much of a dent in Apple’s market share (the only two worthy ones are Samsung Galaxy Tab and Blackberry Playbook). But the problem was that all of them were priced exactly like the iPad and customers chose the proven one. Amazon, however, is soon debuting their own tablet Kindle Fire which is priced way below what the iPad sells for – just $199. While analysts unanimously agreed that this is the biggest threat to the iPad, Apple seems to disagree.
Business Insider reports an interesting tidbit from analyst Ben Reitzes when he got to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer. When asked about the Kindle Fire, they had something else to say about it than expected:
While the pricing at $199 looks disruptive for what seems to be the iPad’s most important rising challenge, the Amazon Fire â€" it is important to note that it could fuel further fragmentation in the tablet marketâ€"given it represents yet another platform. While compatible with Android, the Apps work with Amazon products. The more fragmentation, the better, says Apple, since that could drive more consumers to the stable Apple platform. We believe that Apple will get more aggressive on price with the iPad eventually but not compromise the product quality and experience. The more you think about this, the more you can see where Apple is coming from. Their message has always been that the iOS is a very centralised and stable platform that’s easy to use without any customization required, and this will probably only go to re-inforce it. However, there’s no denying the fact that there will be a considerable new opponent in the market that is bound to get customers who previously couldn’t afford a tablet. There’s still a lot to hear from Amazon’s side especially since no one has used the product, so let’s wait and watch this unfold.
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