America has had the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ tablet since November 2012. However, consumers from the rest of the Western world have all but been totally left out in the cold – until recently. Just yesterday Amazon announced that its Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ tablet would now be available in the UK, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Spain with prices starting at £229.99, €269.99 and ¥15,800 respectively. In conjunction with making the launch in those countries amazon is also shaving a fair amount of money off the prices for American consumers.
The 32GB 4G version now costs $399 (formerly $499), the 64GB 4G version costs $499 (formerly $599), the 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi only versions cost $269 (formerly $299) and $299 (formerly $329) respectively. All these prices are for those units that come with the sponsored screensavers, if you don’t want those then you have to add another $15 to the cost of each of those models – either way though Amazon is still reducing the prices which is nice to see.
Amazon said it had been thrilled by the response to its Kindle Fire HD but it didn’t disclose any sales figures so we cannot determine just how successful it was. Amazon has claimed that it is expanding into new regions and has expanded production volumes allowing it to cut costs which it has passed on as savings to consumers (either that or sales are slowing down and reducing prices is the easy way to boost them back up again).
Seeing Amazon slash prices on their tablets isn’t exactly anything new, we know for a long time they have sold their tablets and e-readers at production costs, or below production costs, in order to make a longer term profit through the sale of software and services. Selling ebooks, Amazon Prime subscriptions, films, games and other downloads are the main sources of this long term income.
Anyone interested in checking out more detailed pricing and specifications should visit the Amazon Kindle Fire HD page here. We want to know if anyone from the UK, Japan or Europe is excited by the arrival? Will you be buying one now it is available in your country? Or are you still in a country where it isn’t sold and would like to see it? Let us know what you think!
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