It’s no secret that Amazon has a lot of unsold Fire Phones, but the question has been how the retailer would look to sell its inventory.
In Another Fire Sale, Amazon Cuts Phone Price to $199 Unlocked, Still With a Free Year of Prime
The move is a $250 cut off the already reduced price.
Ina Fried
The company has made its latest move, this time offering the phone for just $199 unlocked — a $250 price cut off the phone’s already reduced price. Making it an even better deal, Amazon is still including a year of free Amazon Prime, meaning that for those who are already paying for Prime or looking to sign up, the phone is really just $99 extra with no need for a contract.
Amazon signaled it would be taking more drastic action in its last quarterly earnings, taking a huge $170 million charge for the phone, sales of which have badly trailed the company’s initial hopes.
The Fire Phone was initially priced at $199 with a two-year contract or $649 without a contract. That put the device on par with flagship phones, including the latest iPhones. Many were surprised to see Amazon not being more aggressive either with the price of the phone or with the associated monthly service. The Fire Phone, initially exclusive to AT&T, used that carrier’s standard rate plans.
In September, Amazon cut the price to 99 cents with a two-year contract, or $449 unlocked.
In an interview with Fortune, Amazon executive David Limp admitted the company got the pricing wrong.
Despite the rough start, Amazon pledged it would plug ahead with its phone business and promised bigger and better things are in store.
Update: Amazon now says the $199 price is “for a limited time.” It is set to run through at least Cyber Monday along with some discounts on Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets.
Amazon said the unlocked model will come with some new features, including the ability to use the Firefly recognition feature to do text translation. These features, though, will also be made available to existing Fire phone owners via a software update in the coming weeks.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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