Amazon Fire Phone permanently discounted to $.99 on a new two-year contract
In case you didn’t already believe the Amazon Fire Phone wasn’t selling well, perhaps this news might convince you. Amazon has taken the phone down to $.99 when signing a new two-year contract. It’s only been a few weeks since its launch and it’s already down to less than a buck — doesn’t sound like it’s exactly lighting up the sales charts.
Of course, phones often do get discounted to less than $1 on Amazon. Heck, many of them go for as little as a penny. But that typically only happens after a few months of availability, and those offers are typically designed to get you to buy phones through their store rather than a competitor’s or through a carrier.
The Amazon Fire Phone can only be had at two places right now — their own store and the exclusive carrier partner AT&T — so it’s not like Amazon needed to put on a ridiculous deal to steal attention away from the competition. We will likely never hear Amazon or AT&T admit that the phone isn’t selling well, but there’s nothing to suggest it’s been a hot commodity to this point.
Amazon had the potential to change the game with the Fire Phone. We expected them to launch an affordable device that was still powerful enough to be a serious daily driver for any smartphone user’s needs. Instead, Amazon offered a phone with a good deal of gimmicks and not much substance at what most believe to be an inflated price point of $200. Our review went into detail about many of the device’s pitfalls. It certainly wasn’t that attractive of a buy over options like the HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5, or even offerings of yesteryear.
It feels like the HTC First and HTC Status all over again, and you have to wonder whether AT&T is starting to get fed up with these underperforming one-off gimmick phones. Perhaps there’s a good reason no other carrier is willing to pay for exclusivity on these things. Head to Amazon right here to buy one if you happen to be interested in its new price tag.