There are rumors circulating that Amazon.com Inc. might be joining the smartphone market as it is set on developing a new smartphone model that will be launched soon.

The news of Amazon's new smartphone venture was fuelled due to a recent report by a Taiwan-based Economic News report which detailed a recent partnership between Amazon.com Inc. and Foxconn. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company and a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision. It is also considered as the world's largest EMS firm which produces a number of consumer electronic equipment for companies like Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, Nintendo, etc. According to the news, Amazon and Foxconn signed an agreement to form a joint-design manufacturing company which would be the responsible for producing the supposed Amazon smartphone. The smartphone is targeted to be out in the market by the fourth quarter of 2012 and would cost less than US$200. The price could still be lowered due to the marketing strategy that Amazon did for Kindle and Fire when these tablets were launched.

The new Amazon smartphone would be based on the Omap 4430 processor from Texas Instruments and a dual-mode baseband chipset (HSPA+/CDMA EVDO). The model is also supposed to adopt Qualcomm's dual mode 6-series standalone baseband due to the fact that it is the longtime supplier of baseband for Amazon's e-reader. Other specifications disclosed were the 8MP camera, 4-inch touch screen and HSPA+radio which enable faster data uploading and downloading in cellular technology. The Amazon smartphone would also be able to take advantage on the wide variety of resources like movies, books, music, etc. in Amazon.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Citigroup Securities further discussed the possibility of an Amazon smartphone stating that "We continue to believe Amazon has now set its eyes on the mobile (and tablet) media and product consumption frontier." Mahaney also mentioned that Amazon's smartphone decision was a logical business strategy due to the "clear success of the Kindle e-reader for the past three years and Kindle Fire possibly succeeding in the low-priced tablet market." In terms of the OS that is going to be used in the Amazon smartphone, Mahaney just mentioned a possible "OS royalty to Microsoft".

Amazon has not yet released any statement addressing the rumors about the company's new smartphone release.