@amazonKindle Fire battle Apple iPad Mini in 2014 - Why @Amazon Tablet Glory Days fading as Tablet Extinction inevitable

Since the Amazon Kindle Fire had been launched in September 2011 as noted in my blog article entitled “Amazon Kindle Fire is now No. 2 behind the Apple iPad 2 - Deathrace to London Olympics 2012AD”, it has been giving the Apple iPad a lot of competition by popularizing the 7" category of Tablets.

Amazon has followed up with an update of their Amazon Fire Tablet line in 2014 that has many Amazon Prime members spoilt for choice as reported in the article “Your handy Amazon Kindle Fire cheatsheet”, published September 19, 2014 by Eric Franklin, CNET News. The Tablets in the 2014 line that was released in September and October 2014 are as follows:

1.      Kindle Fire HD6

2.      Kindle Fire HD6

3.      Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition

4.      Kindle Fire HDX 7

5.      Kindle Fire HDX 8.9

These are all small form-factor Kindle Fires of varying Screen sized and prices as listed in the table below.

So what lies ahead for the Amazon Fire Kindle in 2015, given that Tablet sales are falling globally according to analyst IDC in February 2015 according to my blog article entitled “IDC Stats suggest Tablet Freefall in 2015 – How to sell Tablets using built-in Keyboards and Carrier Unlocked SIM Cards”.

Apple and Amazon battle in the 7" Category - Tablet glory of Days past slowly fading

The Amazon Kindle fire was truly a game-changer when it was launched back in 2011, as it proved the viability and hidden love for the 7" Tablet form factor.

So much so that Apple eventually launched the 7.9" Apple iPad Mini in 2012 at a time when the world was falling in love with the 7" Tablet form, factors as noted in my  Geezam blog article entitled “The Two Towers of Tablets, 7” Amazon Kindle Fire and 7.9” Apple iPad are the Global Tablet size of Choice”.

At the same time, Amazon updated their Kindle Fire line with improvements to the Kindle Fire line, mainly upgrading the Processor and the Screen resolution as explained in my blog article entitled “Amazon launches a pair of Kindle Fire 2 - ACS-Xerox Call Centers in Jamaica ramp up as Kindle Fire begin to Sparkle”.

Since then, these 7" Tablets made by both Apple and Amazon have been refreshed on a yearly basis.

Apple soon followed up in October 2013 with the Apple iPad Mini 2 as noted in my blog article entitled “Apple iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2 Launch Event expected on Tuesday October 22^nd 2013 - 64-bit Quad-core A7 Processors, Touch ID, Apple Mac Pro and Apple iTV Video Game Console anticipated”.

The Apple iPad 5 also got rebranded as the Apple iPad Air, stealing some of the thunder from the Apple Macbook Air as note in my Geezam blog article entitled “Apple iPad Air’s the World Thinnest Tablet and Apple iPad Mini 2’s a 3DS and Vita killer”.

Amazon focuses on E-Readers in 2014 with Kindle Unlimited – Delaying the inevitable Tablet Extinction

Amazon opted to update the Amazon Paperwhite, their popular e-reader, with a few hardware and software upgrades as reported in my blog article entitled “US$199 Amazon Kindle Paperwhite upgrades Hardware and Software - How to find free Ebooks and e-Book Readers for Laptops and PC”.

They've even thrown in the option of an all-you-can-read US$8.99 Amazon Kindle Unlimited e-book subscription in June 2011 as reported in my blog article entitled “Amazon launches US$9.99 Kindle Unlimited - Oyster and Scribd got served by Earth’s Most Customer Centric Company but pay Indies Publishers better”.

But this is delaying the inevitable, as since the second half of 2014, branded Tablet sales are being cannibalized by Chinese “White-Label” Generic Tablets and to a lesser extent the growing trend of phablets as predicted in my blog article entitled “Gartner and IDC Forecast Tablets, PC fall, Smartphone rise - How Tablet's 3-Year Lifespan means Sub-US$199 Smartphones, Chrome OS to Dominate”.   

They've been affecting the sales of the Apple iPad and even the Google Nexus 9 Tablet as explained in my blog article entitled “US$183 Google Nexus 9 Tablet – Tablet Extinction coming as @googlenexus Strategy needed for Content Creation Tablet Market”.

So it'll be interesting to see what Amazon has in store for their refresh of their Amazon Kindle Fire line of Tablets in face of the declining interest in Name brand Tablets, now perceived as being overpriced.