Forrester: Amazon could sell 5 million of unconfirmed tablet next quarter

Andre Yoskowitz
29 Aug 2011 23:08

According to Forrester Research, Amazon could sell 5 million of its still unconfirmed tablet in the Q4, making it a viable competitor to Apple and the iPad.
When the tablet is eventually launched, it is expected to sell for $299 or even $199, well below Apple's base price of $499.
Says the firm:

Thus far, Apple has faced many would-be competitors, but none have gained significant market share. Not only does Amazon have the potential to gain share quickly but its willingness to sell hardware at a loss, as it did with the Kindle, makes Amazon a nasty competitor.

One issue is the amount of native apps for Android tablets, which stand under 300. There are over 100,000 iPad native apps, by comparison.
Amazon will take a loss on every tablet sold but has an extremely strong ecosystem including the Kindle book store for ebooks, Cloud player/Amazon MP3 for music, the Amazon Video store for movies and TV shows, and the Amazon Appstore for Android, where the company takes a 30% chunk of each app sold.