Just yesterday a new rumor surfaced claiming that HTC and Amazon have partnered up and are actively working on three Amazon-branded handsets for release no earlier than sometime next year. Now Bloomberg News is also chiming in with a few new details of their own.
According to Bloomberg's sources, HTC and Amazon are not only working on three different handsets, but they plan to sell them exclusively to members of Amazon's Prime service. The idea is that Amazon wants to boast both the number of Prime subscribers as well as increase the number of devices that can access Amazon’s Instant Video service.
Of course an easy way to increase the number of devices accessing Amazon's streaming service would be to release the Instant Video app for Android, but I digress.
Back on point, the anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg make it clear that Amazon and HTC have yet to make a final decision on whether or not to actually release the three handsets – so that means they are still very much in the planning and prototyping phase.
Does the idea of being 'Prime only' make sense?
The idea of limiting the Amazon phone to just Prime members has its pros and cons. On the positive side, Amazon is guaranteed to not only make money from the use of Amazon's App Store but also from the required Amazon Prime subscription. This means that Amazon can likely subsidize the costs of the phone and give consumers a killer price tag. On the downside, they are also locking out potential customers.
If this rumor is true, Amazon is probably hoping that an affordable price point and (we assume) decent specs will be enough to pull in more Prime members. Will it work? That remains unseen.
What do you think – would you consider an Amazon handset if the price were right?
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