Online retailer Amazon slashes price of its Fire smartphone to 99 cents with 2-year contract

Amazon is slashing the price of its Fire smartphone, a day before Apple is expected to unveil its latest version of the iPhone.

The online retailer says the Fire with 32 gigabytes of memory will now cost 99 cents when customers sign a two-year contract with AT&T. That's down from $199.

The phone with 64 gigabytes of memory will now cost $99 with a two-year contract, down from $299.

Amazon says the phones will still come with unlimited cloud storage for photos and a free 12 months of Amazon Prime, the company's free shipping and video-streaming plan, which normally costs $99 a year.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. are down $5.78, or 1.67 percent to $340.60 in afternoon trading.