Amazon’s rumored entrance into the smartphone market could potentially complement the company’s struggling Kindle Fire and surging app store sales. An Amazon smartphone would not only push forward the already growing app store, but could give the company an outlet for mobile advertising — an area in which its unique collection of data could help predict future purchases.

“U.S. mobile commerce is exploding. Amazon, as a leading ecommerce site, is set to grab a big chunk of that,” reports Business Insider, suggesting the company’s “ambitions are anything but limited to ecommerce.”

The Amazon ecosystem of ebooks, music, movies, TV shows and apps may provide the most comprehensive challenge to Apple. While Google has a large store as well, it does not control its ecosystem as strictly as Amazon and Apple.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire has struggled since its successful launch, notes a recent BI Intelligence report. Amazon has only sold about half as many tablets in the second and third quarters as it did in its first quarter. However, Amazon will release a new line of Kindle Fires at competitive prices to challenge the Nexus and iPad Mini.

Amazon’s smartphone strategy seems to be coming together as “a recent purchase of 3D mapping startup UpNext, last year’s acquisition of voice recognition software creator Yap, and the launch of a prepaid wireless service in Japan,” may help shape Amazon’s smartphone future.

“Amazon has the potential to be a huge force in mobile advertising,” suggests the report. “Data is the lifeblood of online advertising and Amazon has a unique data trove. It’s not just data on what people like to buy, but data on what recommendations work in getting people to buy things.”