Amazon launches new Fire TV to compete with Apple in the living room

According to foreign media reports, Amazon launched four new tablets and three TV-related devices at once on Thursday. The company intends to use these new products to regain consumers' favor in the upcoming shopping season. The new tablet products include two models with HD display, a low-end model priced at $50, and a product designed for children. Among those TV-related products, there is a $100 ultra-high-definition set-top box, a game controller, and a video streaming device.

Amazon and Apple are expanding in the field of consumer electronics in their own ways. Apple takes the high-end and high-priced route, and its cheapest tablet costs $270; while Amazon's cheap tablet only costs $50.
For Amazon, making money on hardware is secondary, and its main goal is to attract consumers to buy more movies, books, music and other products on its platform. For Apple, its goal is to get as much gross profit margin as possible directly from hardware products, but people are also attracted to Apple's ecosystem and will also consume related movies and music products.
Switch to MediaTek processor
According to Bloomberg, Amazon recently quietly released a new set-top box device, the Fire TV Gaming Edition. This model abandoned the processing chip that has always been provided by Qualcomm and switched to a quad-core processor provided by MediaTek for the first time. According to Amazon, the new chip has brought a performance improvement of up to about 75% for the product.
Although Amazon has never officially released specific sales figures, according to a report by market research firm Strategy Analytics, Fire TV, which was released only about two years ago, has now become the best-selling product in the US set-top box device market.
Qualcomm's main revenue still comes from the smartphone market, but the company's share in this market has been eroded by competitors, forcing it to seek breakthroughs in emerging markets including drones, automobiles and smart homes.
Amazon Fire TV Gaming Edition is now available for pre-order at an official price of $139.99. The product will not be officially shipped until October 5.
Amazon spokeswoman Emily Kilpatrick declined to comment on the change in processor providers.
The war spreads to television products
Amazon's Fire TV set-top box has gained a 30% share of the US market. Its main competitors include Apple TV and Roku TV set-top boxes. Last week, Apple released a new Apple TV, and Amazon followed suit with its own Fire TV. All of Amazon's new products, from remote controls to game controllers, are equipped with built-in voice control functions, which can be used to navigate menus or run programs. These products use the company's Alexa software, which was first introduced on the Echo speaker last year. Similar to Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Google's Google Now, Alexa also has similar voice recognition capabilities.
Amazon is not the first manufacturer to introduce voice search functions into TV products. Apple's Apple TV and Google's Android TV platform also have similar functions.
But in the tablet space, things are completely different. In fact, there is no direct conflict between the two companies' products. One is positioned at the low end of the market, and the other is positioned at the high end.
Of course, Amazon's new products also include a 10.1-inch HD tablet priced at $230, but it seems unlikely to shake Apple's position in the high-end field. For those consumers who are on a limited budget and are looking for affordable products, Amazon's products are undoubtedly a good choice. More importantly, Amazon has won the favor of millions of consumers with low-priced products, thereby promoting the development of its own retail business, which is the real core of the company's strategy.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.