Apple, Inc.'s iPad is dominating the tablet market, selling 30 million tablets since launching on April 2010.

More tablet offerings have emerged but their efforts remained futile. Apple has continued to take 70 to 80 percent of the market despite hopeful "iPad killers" being launched every month. However, Apple, Inc. may not get to keep the number one spot for too long.

According to various sources, online retailer Amazon.com is selling its own tablet brand -- a 7-inch tablet at first -- that would have an entry-level price of $250. Sure it's more expensive than the $99 HP TouchPad, but the TouchPad sale is only temporary as it HP is only getting rid of remaining inventory.

Amazon's willingness to sell products at low profit margins or even at a loss may be key to the retailer's entry into the competitive tablet market.

Wayne Lam of iSuppli estimates that most tablets with a 10-inch screen carry an estimated bill of materials in the $300 to $320 range, while a 7-inch screen takes the bill down to the $270 range.

The Amazon tablet's $250, price tag is only half the $499 entry-level iPad 2.

According to PCWorld, Amazon's tablet, which has yet to be officially unveiled, features a 7-inch touchscreen, looks like a BlackBerry PlayBook, and has no physical buttons on the surface. The tablet device, according to PCWorld, is called the Amazon Kindle but is different from the Kindle e-readers.

TechCrunch's MG Siegler believes the tablet runs on a single-core chip and only has 6 GB of internal storage. The initial version of the device will be Wi-Fi only and has a micro-USB port and speakers, but no camera.

The iPad had this advantage over the TouchPad and other rivals: there area already more than 100,000 applications optimized for the iPad 2 that are already available in the Apple App Store, in addition to the more than 200,000 iPhone apps that can also work for the Apple tablet.

But unlike the BlackBerry PlayBook and the TouchPad, Amazon has its own ecosystem of apps and has additional services from the Amazon.com site and its own app store.

PCWorld notes that Amazon built the operating system on top of some version of Android prior to 2.2, effectively forking Google's OS to build its own version for the Kindle. Amazon is said to have deeply integrated its services in this new tablet with a Kindle app for reading books, Amazon's Cloud Player for music, Amazon's Instant Video player for watching movies, and Amazon's Android Appstore (not Google's Android Market). It also has a Web browser and Google search is set as default.

What's more, Amazon is said to be sweetening the deal by giving buyers a free subscription to the $79-a-year Amazon Prime. The service gives users free unlimited two-day shipping, no minimum purchases for free shipping, and access to Amazon's Instant Video service.

"Not only does Amazon have the potential to gain share quickly, but its willingness to sell hardware at a loss, as it did with the Kindle, makes Amazon a nasty competitor," Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester wrote in a report, MarketWatch discloses. "Apple sells software and services, but the lion's share of Apple's revenue still comes from hardware, which makes it vulnerable to a company, such as Amazon, that isn't seeking profit from hardware sales."

Taiwan tech newspaper quoted sources at component suppliers saying Amazon's 7-inch tablets will begin shipping in October, in time for holiday sales. Amazon's 10-inch tablets is expected to arrive next year.

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