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Amazon studying giving free Kindles to Amazon Prime subscribers, TechCrunch says
February 12, 2010 | 11:56 am
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By Chris Meadows
Want a free Kindle? You might start thinking about signing up for Amazon Prime.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington reports hearing from “a reliable source” that Amazon is trying to determine how it can economically give a free Kindle to every subscriber to Amazon Prime—Amazon’s $79/year expedited shipping program.
As Arrington points out, Prime subscribers tend to be heavy Amazon purchasers (they would sort of have to be, to feel they were “getting their money’s worth” from that $79 per year investment). So if Amazon can get the cost to make Kindles down enough, and entice people to buy enough books (and Kindle books), it could literally increase their user base by millions.
It’s a bit ironic, though, that you might have to be subscribed to a program that gives a price-break on shipping in order to get a free Kindle, given that Kindle e-books don’t need “shipping” at all in the traditional sense.
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Comments:
Okay, who *didn’t* see this coming?
(outside of the BPH execs?)
“Forced” to take higher margins on ebooks, Amazon can now afford to go with a gaming console-style subsidized hardware model.
Lots of options to grow the Kindle ecosystem with all that “extra” money now…
I would hardly be shocked if they also were to consider setting up book clubs for Kindle users to sign up for.
Let’s see the BPHs try to cartel reader hardware prices next.
If they have an inventory of older models, this could make more sense. I also like the idea of a book club model.
This probably has a lot to do with the iPad. Give tech savvy, high frequency Amazon customers a Kindle and when the get on the ebook bandwagon, they might be less likely to buy an iPad.
I guess it could make sense for Amazon in more ways than one if a lot of Prime subscribers bought e-books instead of printed books that would be delivered via two-day shipping.
I like the idea of offering the Kindle free to certain users. They would have to be heavy book buyers. But offering them for free to all Prime subscribers doesn’t look to be profitable.
Free Kindle good idea, but will it be profitable?