Amazon might have a hard time overtaking Apple in the tablet wars, but it is doing a pretty swell job at triumphing over another behemoth – this time from the social media field – and yes, we’re talking about the mighty Facebook. According to a new survey conducted by Baird Equity Research, a majority of U.S. consumers would be interested in purchasing an Amazon smartphone rather than a Facebook one. Some time ago, the social networking giant has announced that it was thinking of designing its own smartphone and feedback was pretty decent back then.
The device was rumored to be called “Buffy” and it was supposed to land under the watchful eye of HTC. Well, apparently rumors can be wrong. The survey included 875 people. 42% of them rated themselves as “interested” or “very interested” of the idea of owning an Amazon smartphone. Just a meager 12% were “interested” or “very interested” in the possibility of grabbing a Facebook device.
Amazon will probably jump at the opportunity, especially since publications like paidContent already released information according to whom Amazon might be cooking up within its creative laboratories – just this kind of device. But let’s be fair here. The survey is quite a small one – it did not even poll 1000 people. And if we look at the empty part of the glass – 59% of the people involved in the study said that they were “unsure” or “probably not interested” in an Amazon phone, while 88% said the same about the Facebook counterpart. So maybe people are absorbed by their iPhone 4S or hot Android devices to care.
Analysts are already making predictions. They forecasted that Amazon is trying to use the same strategy it used with the tablet Kindle Fire. They are going to lower their prices. The new handset is believed to sport a price tag between $150 and $170. Over in the other camp, CNN’s Pete Cashmore claimed he did an informal poll to see for himself if users were attracted to the idea of a Facebook phone. He found that only 7.8% would consider it, while 80% did not want to have anything to do with a Facebook device whatsoever.
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