Next-Gen Kindle Fire eReaders to Start Production?

Amazon could already be preparing the next iteration of the wildly successful Amazon Kindle Fire. Almost a year ago, reports surfaced that Amazon had been working on two tablets that would enable it to move beyond eReaders into a whole new niche, the popular tablet market.

Half a year later, the company launched the Kindle Fire, which was powered by a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. The Kindle Fire emerged as the second most popular tablet in terms of sales after being available for only half a quarter, second only to the Apple iPad.

Meanwhile, the second device that had been rumored last year hasn’t been released. This successor sports a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra processor and measures 10 inches diagonally. Allegedly, Amazon has deferred the launch of the device to the second quarter of the year, although the company itself has been keeping mum about the details.

Recently, however, there were reports that Amazon had already placed chassis orders from the Taiwanese company Catcher Technology, which could hint at the possible start of the production of the new Kindle Fire tablet.

The company will likely supply the chassis from its factories in Taizhou, China. This same manufacturer supplies Apple for the chassis of the iPad, and is expected to augment its production to 15,000 CNC machines to meet the demand for these parts. The estimated gross margin for these orders could be at least 40 percent.

via BGR