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Amazon hiked prices on Echo, Fire TV, Kindle, eero to offset ‘significant increases’ in memory costs
Fortune • • general
Key Points:
- Amazon has raised prices across its hardware product line, including the Echo Dot increasing from $49.99 to $79.99 and the Kindle Paperwhite from $159.99 to $199.99, citing significant increases in memory and storage component costs.
- The Fire TV Stick HD and 4K Max models, as well as the Amazon eero wireless mesh networking systems, also saw price hikes, while Ring products did not experience any price changes.
- The price increases reflect broader industry trends driven by a memory chip shortage due to high demand for AI compute, with other tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Asus also raising prices or reducing memory in their products.
- Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed plans to increase capital expenditures to $220 billion this year, mainly for data centers supporting AI services, but noted that even this investment will not meet all demand through 2026 and 2027.
- Amazon Web Services continues to grow rapidly, with Q2 revenue up 37% year-over-year to $42.2 billion, marking its fastest growth in 18 quarters and the fifth consecutive quarter of accelerated growth.
