Amazon Kindle: Bundled Free In UK, And The iPad Effect
Looks like Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is looking to cast its retail net ever wider in the hunt for new Kindle users: the e-reading device is now being sold in the UK by Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy UK, an extension of a retailing deal …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Kindle-vs-Apple question has been running since 2009, when Business Week asked whether an Apple tie-up would make the Kindle a cannibalization risk. Through 2010 the threat took concrete form: Apple priced iBooks level with the Kindle store in the iBooks pricing reveal, and comparisons like PC World's iBooks-vs-Kindle head-to-head framed the iPad as a direct rival rather than a different category.
With that pressure established, this story is Amazon widening its funnel on the distribution side: per the confirmed reporting, the UK retailing deal now puts the Kindle in Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy UK stores, with the device bundled free — a move explicitly framed as a response to competitive pressure from the iPad. The logic is the one the corpus has been building toward: if the device no longer wins on its own, give it away and own the bookstore.
First-order effects
- Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy UK gain a marquee digital product on their shelves without carrying inventory risk on a paid device, extending Amazon's reach beyond its own online store into UK high-street foot traffic.
Second-order effects
- Apple's UK position is squeezed at the entry point: the iPad still owns color and apps, but a free Kindle removes the price barrier that pushed casual readers toward tablets, forcing the comparison onto content libraries and screen quality instead of sticker price.
Third-order effects
- If free-bundling holds, e-reader economics invert from selling hardware to renting shelf space for a bookstore — device margin disappears and the durable business becomes the account relationship, a structure the wider tablet market would have to answer.
The trend: E-reader competition is shifting from device specs to subsidized distribution, with Amazon using free hardware bundles to defend its bookstore against tablet-era rivals like Apple.