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Amazon's Sluggish Fire Phone Sales Revealed

Thursday, August 28, 2014 - 12:28 by Mike Price

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Online retail giant Amazon has found plenty of success with its own-brand electronics in recent years, regularly topping its own sales charts with the Kindle e-reader and the Kindle Fire tablet range.

However, the recently launched Fire Phone may not be doing so well for the firm, according to the Guardian. This is because figures from ComScore suggest that as few as 35,000 units have been sold via safe shopping online since it was released in the US.

Compared to the multi-million selling rivals it is facing, such as the iPhone range from Apple, this is not an especially reassuring sign for Amazon. Of course, the retailer refuses to provide official figures for the sales of its in-house hardware, but there are still ways for analysts to accurately predict just how many Fire Phones have been purchased.

One reason that the handset may not have managed to attract quite so many buyers is the fact that it was priced on contracts that put it in direct competition with the likes of the iPhone 5S. Other Amazon-brand devices have typically been found at the budget end of the market.

The critical reception of the Fire Phone has been moderately positive, although with such a strong field of alternative handsets out there it seems that even the advertising might of Amazon might not be enough to get it off the ground in the short term.

The Fire Phone is built around making it easy for users to shop online while they are on the move.

Its built-in camera and microphone can detect almost any product without the user knowing its name. So whatever you find in real life, it is easy to add it to your basket. But whether consumers are ready for this kind of functionality is another matter.