Amazon hits highs and lows as it releases its luxury e-reader, the Kindle Voyage, garners low sales with their Fire Phone and delivers with the in-demand Fire TV Stick, The New York Times reported.
Throughout the past years, Amazon has released four different kinds of devices namely e-readers, multipurpose tablets, the Fire Phone and the Fire TV Stick which was released this week.
Amazon also released their luxury e-reader, Kindle Voyage, on Oct. 21 which allows users to combine Amazon's hardware and Amazon's e-book library.
The Kindle Voyage offers sharper text readability than Amazon's previous e-reader, has a flat and glossy screen similar to an iPad and has a screen that automatically adjusts to surrounding light. The device also has a 300-pixels-per-inch screen resolution, an ultra-slim and light body and pressure sensitive bumpers around the screen that allows readers to flip the page easily by simply pressing them.
The Fire Phone, on the other hand, was released on July and failed to match the expectations of investors with poor phone sales, the Media Nama reported. Amazon stated that it was sitting on $83 million worth of unsold Fire Phones and would be taking a $170 million write-down on the program.
Amazon's recent release, the Fire TV Stick, seemed to be highly in demand compared to the Fire Phone, according to CNET. In a bid to fill pre-orders, Amazon revealed that the streaming device would not be available for shipping until Jan. 16, when they earlier claimed a Nov. 19 shipping date.
"Due to popular demand, orders placed today are expected to arrive after January 1, 2015," Amazon wrote on its listing page. "See delivery date at checkout. This item will be released on November 19th."
The Fire TV Stick promised to turn one's television into an Amazon-powered video service. It is sold for $39, is the size of a USB stick and has its own remote control. It can be connected to the back of a television and works with video- and music-streaming apps, including Neflix, Hulu Plus, Spotify, Vevo, A&E and Amazon's own Prime Instant Video.
"We built a ton of these but customer demand outpaced our supply," an Amazon spokesperson told CNET through an emailed statement. "We're excited by the overwhelming customer response and we have teams working hard to build more quickly as possible."
All of Amazon's devices contribute to the "flywheel" of Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos, according to his statement on Amazon. He said that "Amazon's evolution from website to e-commerce partner to development platform is driven by the spirit of invention that is part of Amazon's DNA."
However, everything about Amazon "is about getting that flywheel spinning," according to Benedict Evans, an analyst from the investment firm Andreessen Horowitz and who has studied Amazon. "Whether they actually drive meaningful commerce isn't entirely clear, but Amazon is rigorously focused on data, so if they're doing it, you can trust that there must be data that justifies it."
