Dive Summary:
- Hoping to emulate Amazon's Kindle Fire, retailers continue trying to launch their own branded mobile devices despite notable missteps by giants like Barnes & Noble and Toys "R" Us.
- The latest retailers to throw their hats into the crowded market are convenience store chain 7-Eleven, which is considering a rollout of smartphones and tablets in Taiwan, and supermarket Tesco, which wants to launch a tablet by Christmas to compete with the iPad.
- It's worth noting that Amazon has made little money from the Kindle Fire and that few retailers have been successful launching their own branded consumer electronics, as their devices struggle to gain traction beyond the low-end of the market—though Best Buy's Insignia line is a notable exception.
From the article:
... “A few [companies came out with tablets], and they never went anywhere,” [Yankee Group Boston Vice President of Research and Data Sciences Carl Howe] said. “We’ve seen this movie before, and it never has a happy ending.
“It is usually just a lot of money down the tubes, and they wind up with a lot of devices in a warehouse that they have to get rid of,” he said. ...
