Amazon Smart Phone Could Eventually Lead to Key Industry Change

Rumors about an Amazon.com smart phone have been circulating, off and on, for a couple of years. They are circulating anew, suggesting that Amazon does want to field a branded smart phone, Bloomberg  reports.

Foxconn International Holdings, the Chinese device manufacturer, reportedly is working with Amazon on the device.


The interesting angle, some of us might say, is "why" Amazon wants to market its own smart phone. It doesn't especially care about voice or texting. What it wants is one more widely-deployed screen that can be the foundation for selling digital books, songs and movies. 


As with tablets, the smart phone now is viewed as a primary content consumption appliance. Of course, at some later point in time, service providers that make their money providing voice, texting and mobile broadband access might have to contend with something new, namely competitors with a different revenue model. 


In other words, mobile service providers might someday face competitors who would consider "giving away the product you sell," as they will have another revenue model, namely content and other sales. 


Amazon and Apple both have shown no hesitation to merchandise something to sell something else. In Apple's case, content is merchandised to sell gadgets. For Amazon, gadgets are merchandised to sell content and products. 


Someday, that might even encourage those firms, or others, to offer connectivity as well as gadgets and content, with the likelihood that connectivity revenue is merchandised to sell either gadgets or content or products.