Amazon Elects HP Palm’s Rubinstein as a Director
Amazon.com Inc., the largest online retailer, appointed Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Jon Rubinstein to its board, adding expertise in mobile devices as it expands sales of the Kindle electronic book reader.
Rubinstein, who joined HP when the computer maker purchased Palm Inc. for $1.2 billion in July, was elected yesterday, Seattle-based Amazon said today in a regulatory filing.
Rubinstein, who worked under Steve Jobs at Apple Inc., joins Amazon as it expands retailing services for mobile phones and transforms the Kindle into a multibillion-dollar business. The device and related digital books will generate $5.3 billion in sales for Amazon in 2012, up from $2.8 billion this year, according to Caris & Co. estimates.
“Having him on the board would suggest that Amazon is still focused on the visual media category, from a device and content point of view, in particular with Kindle,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets in San Francisco who has a “hold” on Amazon. “Maybe there are more enhancements on Kindle to come.”
Amazon is also branching into other mobile products, including applications that let customers read digital books on handheld devices besides the Kindle, and software for the Apple iPhone that lets users compare prices on products.
Amazon doesn’t break out unit sales or revenue for Kindle.
After his stint at Apple, Rubinstein came out of retirement to work on Palm’s Pre phone. He became Palm CEO in 2009.
Amazon fell 46 cents to $177.58 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have climbed 32 percent this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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