Amazon (AMZN): Playing Offense or Defense? Part F. Kindle Fire

F. Devices like Kindles which encourage consumption of higher margin digital media as well as increased shopping on Amazon.com.

Much has been written about the likelihood that Amazon is losing money on each individual Kindle Fire it sells. Estimates range from a few bucks to over $50 per unit.

The former assumption (from iSuppli and reported here at CSMonitor.com)

According to iSuppli, a market research firm, the cost of the components required to build a Kindle Fire tablet – from the battery to the memory to the plastic shell – totals approximately $185. Add in manufacturing and assembly fees, and that figure rises to $201.70. That's $2.70 more than the $199 price tag on the Fire.

The latter - bigger loss - assumption (here) lead to fears such as this:

Assuming Amazon is able to sell 2.5 million tablets in the fourth quarter, Munster says the loss on each Kindle Fire could affect earnings by 10 percent to 20 percent.

Allow me to go heavy on the links in this edition of Playing Offense or Defense.  Forbes writer Eric Savitz wrote in January 2012 about an RBC analyst survey of 200 or so Kindle Fire users (link). What were their purchase patterns from Amazon once the Fire was in their palms?

“Our assumption is that AMZN could sell 3-4 million Kindle Fire units in Q4, and that those units are accretive to company-average operating margin within the first six months of ownership. Our analysis assigns a cumulative lifetime operating income per unit of $136, with a cumulative operating margin of over 20%. We believe these insights could ease some investor concerns around operating margin compression per Kindle Fire unit in 2012, which bodes well for Amazon shares.”

Other key findings were these:

Over 80% of Fire owners have purchased an e-book, and 58% had purchased more than three e-books within 15-60 days of buying the Fire. He estimates that customers will by 5 e-books per quarter. At a $10 ASP for the books, he says, that would mean $15 in e-book revenue per quarter.

66% of the survey group had purchased at least one app; 41% have purchased three or more. He assumes 3 apps per purchase per quarter, suggesting $9 in paid app revenue per Kindle Fire unit per quarter at above-company average operating margin.

72% of the sample had not used the Fire to buy physical goods on Amazon.com. Of the 26% who had, a third said the purchases were incremental to what they would have purchased on the site otherwise. 51% increased their physical purchases on Amazon “slightly to significantly” because of owning the Kindle Fire.

In the name of conducting my own market research, I purchased a Kindle Fire for myself in March and combined the device with a Prime membership subscription (which I wrote about here). Here are some of my observations...

• I quickly purchased a $20 Kindle Fire cover. Amazon puts tight controls over Kindle accessories, allowing others to manufacture and sell them, but the mothership gets a higher percentage of each of these transactions. I'll assume 25 percent. So, at $5 gross profit, Amazon already recouped the $2.70 loss estimate, but has a way to go if the true price to cost discrepancy is $50. No worries, Amazon. I'm still buying...
• I've consumed a fair amount of paid digital content, including...two videos for my daughter to watch on a long car ride ($3.98), several MP3 songs for cloudplayer ($10.96), and one app ($1.99). At 20 a percent gross margin assumption (probably WAY underestimated for digital content), Amazon made another $3.40 off me.
• I've accumulated $120 in "convenience" purchases that would have otherwise gone to Target (diapers and other such baby paraphernalia). Let's say they get 15 percent on those, there's another $18 in gross profit. (Though this is arguably more of a Prime Membership thing...I did order it using the Amazon app on the Kindle Fire.)

So, there we have $157 in incremental Amazon purchases that represents somewhere in the ballpark of $25 of gross profit for the company. Best case scenario, Bezos et al. made a profit off me within days of selling the Kindle Fire at a small loss. Worst case, they're about half way to breaking even while getting some very sticky fingers on my wallet. 

Conclusion: While none of this is scientific, I think it's fair to assume Amazon is accomplishing a major offensive victory by (potentially) taking a loss on the sell of each Kindle Fire by getting people like me more interested in exploring what else Amazon has to offer me. I continue to look for excuses to buy every day stuff from Amazon to avoid family trips to Target. Bad news for Target...my wife seems to concur!  


If Amazon is losing $50 per Kindle Fire, and these losses are multiplied across millions of Fires sold each quarter, I (as a potential investor) welcome the hit to earnings and the dissonance (a la the Shleifer Effect) it will create for short-term shareholders. While hopeful, I'm also skeptical of the big losses.