Amazon moves 1m Kindles a week, mum on Kindle Fire's share
updated 01:40 pm EST, Thu December 15, 2011
Amazon touts e-reader records with few details
Amazon provided some rare numerical data about its Kindle and Kindle Fire sales on Thursday that still left open questions about its real performance. It had been selling over a million of the combined lineup a week for the past three weeks. The pack had been led by the Kindle Fire, which had been picking up in volume over the same three weeks.
The E Ink readers were "close behind," VP Dave Limp said, and in some cases readers were buying both a Kindle Fire and one of the simpler devices at the same time. Its Android tablet had been the best seller for the past 11 weeks.
As is often the case with Amazon, however, the company declined to give any definitive numbers, making it difficult to gauge the real demand for the Kindle Fire or any other individual model. The online retailer has usually cited it as revealing competitive details, but the figures have also helped mask any weakness in a given line relative either to other Kindles or the industry.
Amazon is known to have stepped up production of the Kindle Fire. Rumors have it producing as many as five million of the slates in 2011, making it second only to the iPad in the fall, but how many it has sold isn't apparent. Stiff early criticism has raised the possibility of a higher-than-usual return rate.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2008
Lots of returns
There will be tons and tons of returns. Once the buyer realizes that the technology bloggers, journalist (LOL), tech sites, iHaters sites and even mainstream media that continued to call this a Tablet and iPad Killer are talking out of their a**! This thing is not even close to giving you a near tablet or iPad experience. It's a product sold at a loss to entice users to buy products online from Amazon. It's built to give you the bare minimum. This should never have been called a Tablet.