Amazon Cuts Price Of Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch; Expands Sale To Europe, Japan

(RTTNews.com) - Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. ( AMZN ) on Wednesday lowered the price of its best-selling Kindle Fire HD tablets in the U.S., citing lower production costs after expanding sales of the devices to Europe and Japan.

Seattle-based Amazon said that Kindle Fire HD is now available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. Accordingly, Amazon noted that it was able to lower the price of the 8.9 inch Kindle Fire HD tablet in the U.S., with the Wi-Fi version now starting at $269 and the 4G version starting at $399.

Amazon unveiled the tablets in early September 2012 ahead of the crucial holiday season, as the company looked to capture a significant chunk of the tablet market that is dominated mainly by Apple Inc.'s ( AAPL ) iPad. The company had launched the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD at a price of $299 and the Kindle Fire HD 4G LTE at a price of $499.

Dave Limp, Vice President of Amazon Kindle said, "As we expand Kindle Fire HD 8.9" to Europe and Japan, we've been able to increase our production volumes and decrease our costs. Across our business at Amazon, whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we want to pass the savings along to our customers."

AMZN closed Wednesday's trading at $275.10, up $0.97 or 0.35 percent on a volume of 1.88 million shares.

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