After years of rumors followed by a string of exclusive BGR reports that exposed nearly everything there was to know about Amazon’s first smartphone, the company finally unveiled the Fire Phone earlier this week. Despite its somewhat lackluster specs, the phone includes a good amount of unique technology and related features that might help justify its sky-high price point. Industry watchers had expected Amazon to use aggressive pricing as a key weapon, however, and many have now written off the phone’s chances as a result of its $650-$750 price tag.
In an interview following the Fire Phone’s unveiling, however, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made his case for the new handset and explained why he thinks it’s a better option than top rival phones.
“Our job is to build the greatest device we know how to build and then customers will choose,” Bezos told Re/code in an interview published on Friday. “The other job we have is to be patient.”
Bezos addressed a number of key issues in the interview, and he also tried to rationalize the phone’s high price, which is in line with Apple’s iPhone 5s and Samsung’s Galaxy S5.
“It’s not a major shift,” Bezos explained when Re/code noted that Amazon has done nothing in the way of disrupting traditional smartphone economics. “The price is aggressive if you look at what we’ve put into the phone. To be able to offer a 32GB phone with that feature set, four corner cameras and everything that is there at $199? That’s a very aggressive price point for a phone that premium. The structure of the [monthly] payments and all of that — that’s what AT&T does.”
The full interview is a good read and it’s linked below in our source section.
