Amazon working with Android OEMs on deep service integration: Report

Amazon’s Kindle Fire Phone was a rare misstep for the company. Amazon chose to try leaping straight into the high-end smartphone market rather than lead with an affordable midrange product, and sales suffered accordingly. The company quietly killed the Fire Phone less than a year after launch, but the device’s demise apparently didn’t mean the end of Amazon’s mobile ambitions.
A new report from The Information suggests Amazon is interested in working with third-party manufacturers to gain deeper access to Android. The report claims that the sales giant wants to do much more than just preload applications. The goal would be to create a third-party device that used Amazon’s Kindle UI and software to mimic the experience available on an Amazon Fire tablet.

8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX. Not quite as sexy as the iPad Air, but still a mean machine.

In theory, this could be a win for both sides. Amazon would have access to a platform for rolling out new services and capabilities, as well as access to potential Amazon Prime customers. The device manufacturer might be able to negotiate for a slice of revenue if customers signed up for Amazon Prime, or when they purchased products from their phones. Amazon already offers these kinds of deals for companies that bundle preloaded applications; preferred partners might earn a larger share of revenue or receive other financial considerations.
Even if that option isn’t on the table, Amazon partners would (at least theoretically) gain access to Amazon’s own storefront and product capabilities without having to develop such options themselves.
It’s not clear, however, if users would be pleased with the same level of deep Amazon integration. Amazon’s hardware division has always been a platform for driving sales to Amazon.com, but the company used to go to greater lengths to hide that fact. The latest version of FireOS devotes more space to advertisements overall, and any hypothetical smartphone would likely bundle and heavily promote Amazon Prime and its various features rather than integrating with more popular services like Netflix.
None of these options are deal breakers, at least not for most people, and it makes sense for Amazon to look into third-party partnerships if it wants to grow FireOS into a genuine Google alternative. Right now, the relatively small size of the Kindle market means that comparatively few people are fully plugged into the Amazon app ecosystem.
If the idea pans out, we might one day see Amazon offer discounted smartphones as an Amazon Perk, or alternately give Prime away as part of a high-end smartphone purchase. The company isn’t commenting on whether it has this type of plan in the works, but it wouldn’t surprise us if it did.

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