In a very bold move, Amazon just lowered its price for the Amazon Fire phone from $199 to $0.99. What's the catch? This deal comes with a two-year contract with AT&T. But still, that's a huge price slash from the largest online retailer in the world.
Aside from the price cut, customers who would jump on the promo will also get a free subscription to Amazon Prime for one whole year, which costs $99. Members of Amazon Prime enjoy free and fast shipping for all goods bought from Amazon, pus a free library of digital content ranging from ebooks to TV shows and movies.
While the huge price slash came as a surprise, what's more surprising is the timing. Amazon changed the price just a day before the iPhone 6 release, which got many people thinking about the move. According to The Wall Street Journal, the sales for the Amazon Fire isn't doing so well. It was expected to sell two to three million units, but it didn't happen. According to The Guardian, the phone only sold 35,000 units.
Now this bold move from Amazon may be to get people on board before they put their money on the iPhone 6, which is something a lot of people are really looking forward to. But even if this move doesn't get them new customers, Amazon will try their chances of success in the U.K. The Guardian reported that Amazon will bring the Fire Phone to the U.K. by Sept. 30.
According to Forbes, Amazon has not made a comment or returned a request to comment about the Fire phone price drop happening just before Apple releases the iPhone 6. But for obvious reasons, Amazon is definitely trying to make an effort for its sales to pick up, especially now that the greatest smartphone competitor has just released the newest "it" thing in the mobile market.
