The Kindle Fire Tablet and Its Target Audience

The Kindle Fire tablet has ignited many a person’s interest since it was first launched, but who was the primary audience Amazon had in mind when they created this unique little tablet?

Compared to the almost universal reception of enthusiasm and excitement which greeted the advent of Apple’s iPad, the Kindle Fire failed to generate the same sort of buzz. However, Amazon never expected to capture the same section of the market as the iPad. Here’s why.

Making a Good Thing Better

The initial Kindle was hugely popular and revolutionized the way we read books. It was cheap, accessible, and — because it was an Amazon product — offered a bookstore without equal. The Kindle wasn’t the first e-reader on the market, but compared to its rivals it quickly became the most popular. However, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos saw an opportunity for his company to grow by tapping into a market Apple’s iPad had not ventured very far into, and the plucky visionary grabbed that opportunity with both hands.

A Real Bargain

The Kindle Fire tablet was hailed by some, upon its launch, as the “iPad killer.” It wasn’t quite that, but suddenly a Kindle not only allowed you to read books but also let you watch movies, play music, view photos, and download apps, all for a fraction of the price of an iPad. All in all, it was a full-color multimedia tablet that wouldn’t cost you the earth.

So Who Is the Audience?

Sized somewhere between an iPhone and an iPad and with an irresistibly low price, the Kindle Fire has real appeal for anyone on a low income, particularly young people and students, who want a tablet that does a lot but doesn’t retail for a lot. For regular Amazon customers, the Kindle Fire tablet is also a dream come true, because it automatically links your Amazon account with the easily accessed bookstore, app store, music store, and Lovefilm, not to mention the traditional Amazon store where you actually buy physical items. The Kindle Fire tablet also allows you to view an unlimited stream of your personal photos and documents, as long as they’re stored on the Amazon Cloud (remember: make sure you perform a Kindle speed test to analyze broadband performance before using the cloud).

The Final Analysis

Critics will argue that the Kindle Fire tablet is the “poor man’s iPad,” but it answers a market need for a low-cost tablet and is making more people question the price of the higher-end tablets in general.