Amazon.com Inc is dropping the price on its Kindle e-reader, but the change comes with a trade-off: On-screen ads.
Amazon was set to announce yesterday that the new Kindle with Special Offers will cost US$114 — US$25 less than the currently lowest-priced Kindle — and include advertisements on the bottom of the device’s home page and on its screen savers.
Seattle-based Amazon will start shipping the newest Kindle on May 3, and it will also be sold in Target and Best Buy stores on that date.
The online retailer has consistently lowered the price of the Kindle since it released the first version of the device at US$399 in 2007, though this is the first time it is doing so while including ads on the e-reader.
Kindle director Jay Marine said in an interview yesterday that the release of a cheaper, ad-studded Kindle was Amazon’s way of getting the device into the hands of more people.
However, it also shows Amazon is getting more aggressive in its efforts to lure consumers tempted by competing e-readers and bombarded by ads for Apple Inc’s latest iPad and a growing number of competing tablet computers.
Some potential buyers may be turned off by the idea of having ads on an e-reader, but Marine thinks that serving up a number of money-saving offers will be appealing.
“We think customers are going to love it,” he said.
The advertisers sponsoring screen savers at next month’s launch will be General Motors Co’s Buick car brand, Procter & Gamble Co’s Olay cosmetics brand and payments processor Visa Inc.
JPMorgan Chase & Co will also advertise the Amazon.com Reward Visa Card.
Other than the addition of advertisements, the latest Kindle is identical to the current one that uses Wi-Fi to wirelessly download books (a more expensive model uses 3G for wireless content delivery).
It has a grayscale “electronic ink” screen that measures 6 inches (15cm) at the diagonal, a battery that lasts for three weeks with Wi-Fi on and enough space to store 3,500 books.
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