X

Amazon taps Foxconn for 10-inch Kindle Fire, says report

Foxconn will make a 10-inch Kindle Fire for Amazon, according to a report. If true, this indicates Amazon is targeting the sweet spot of the tablet market.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
Brooke Crothers
A 10-inch Kindle Fire? If true, that would put it in the same screen-size league as Apple's iPad.
A 10-inch Kindle Fire? If true, that would put it in the same screen-size league as Apple's iPad.

Amazon will consign production of a 10-inch Kindle Fire tablet to Foxconn, according to an Asia-based report. If true, this would mean that Amazon has its sights on a slightly bigger tablet than previous reports have claimed.

Shipments of the 10-inch class Fire would begin in the second quarter, according to a report in DigiTimes.

Previous speculation had cited a 9-inch class Fire. Currently, Amazon sells a 7-inch device. The Internet retailer has sold 4 million to 5 million units during the last quarter, according to estimates by various market research firms.

Quanta and Inventec manufacture the 7-inch Kindle Fire as well as Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet, the report said. Amazon may be seeking additional contract manufacturers due to the positive market response to the 7-inch Fire, according to the report.

A 10-inch Fire--depending on its feature set--could put Amazon in roughly the same market segment as Apple's 9.7-inch iPad 2. Apple, however, is a moving target. It is expected to bring out its next-generation iPad in March that will boast the highest resolution screen on any consumer tablet to date.