The #1 online retailer wants to expand its internal product offerings.
Signs have been pointing to an Amazon-branded tablet, which would have significantly more features than the highly successful Kindle e-reader, for several months. Now it’s suggested the device could come as early as just three months from now.
A report from Digitimes specifically called out August as the potential launch window for an Amazon tablet, which would be powered by Android. The retailer surely wants to take advantage of the holiday shopping season.
In May, Amazon began placing orders with Quanta, one of the most prolific Android tablet manufacturing suppliers.
Quanta, a company without a lot of name recognition outside its home base in Taiwan, expects to sell more than $3.5 billion worth of the Android tablets this year, with plans to launch its first one in the second half of 2011.
The reality Amazon may be facing is that people only want multi-functional devices now. There used to be a time when a phone that was also a portable media player was a terrible phone and a terrible media player.
Those days are over, and now the more functionality a device can have, the more attractive it is.
While Amazon hasn’t said much about its tablet plans, the order with Quanta and the new Digitmes report proves the company is interested and is moving forward.
