Following Amazon’s recent quarterly earnings report, Victor Basta, managing director of Magister Advisors, examines how the retail giant is threatening Apple.
We believe that Amazon has serious aspirations to be a major mobile device company, to fuel its retail and book sales, and find new ways of engaging with its huge base of active credit-card enabled purchasers.”
While Apple is clinging onto its hardware heritage, Amazon comes at the market from e-tail origins and has no such shackles. They are effectively on a trajectory to build ‘the next Apple’ but from a different direction.”
We expect to see Amazon accelerate its efforts in mobile devices and there is already plenty of evidence that this is where it is heading. Amazon has bought a range of companies that each provide critical parts of the mobile puzzle.”
In the past few years Amazon has acquired SnapTell, an image matching startup; IVONA Software, a text to speech service; Yap, a voice to text startup; Touchco, a specialist in touch screen technology; and Evi, a Siri-style mobile app that turns phones into mobile assistants.”
Amazon already has partnerships with mobile providers via its Whispernet service, a 3G wireless plan provided by the company, free of charge.”
Even Inspector Clouseau would not have difficulty working out that Amazon is a business with a deep interest in being a serious mobile player.”
Amazon is already comfortable with the idea of offering its customers high-quality low-cost devices and has volunteered that it sells Kindles at a loss. The prize for Amazon is in commercialising its content and it is way ahead of Apple in this.
ByVictor Basta
Managing director
Magister Advisors
http://magisteradvisors.com/
