Amazon to Launch 10-Inch Fire Tablet Before Year-End: Analyst

Following the release of Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet on Sept. 28, Mark Lipacis, an analyst at Jefferies, believes Amazon will launch a 10-inch device before the end of the year.

The Kindle Fire, which is arriving in stores Nov. 15, is a 7-inch tablet based on a customized version of Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

The Kindle Fire doesn't have a camera, Bluetooth, expandable storage, HDMI, GPS and 3G. But, the tablet is expected to come with an unspecified dual-core processor and has a storage space of 8GB.

We previously identified Texas Instruments' OMAP4 processor in the 7-inch version, and our most recent checks indicate that the CPUs for the 10-inch version are NVIDIA's Tegra (10-inch WiFi Fire), and Qualcomm's SnapDragon (10-inch 3G), said Lipacis. Our checks also indicate Broadcom is the WiFi chip supplier into all devices.

Lipacis identified Texas Instruments as the likely supplier of CPU in the Kindle Fire announced that day (7-inch version). His subsequent checks indicate that Amazon is using a multiple CPU sourcing strategy for its 10-inch Fire, which he anticipates by the end of the year.

He believes that NVIDIA is supplying its Tegra CPU into the WiFi version of the 10-inch Fire, and that Qualcomm is supplying its Snapdragon processor into the 3G version for both its application processor and baseband modem. For all versions of the Fire, he believes that Broadcom is supplying the WiFi connectivity.

He quantifies revenue and EPS implications, which are nominal, but he views the design wins as an important indication of competitive positioning in the tablet market.

Jefferies Hardware Analyst, Peter Misek, projects the Fire to be the best selling non-Apple tablet in 2012, at 12 million units. However, depending on pricing for the 10-inch model, Lipacis believes that if any non-Apple tablet could post upside, the Fire would be it.