December 15, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team
Amazon has been very humble about releasing specific sale numbers of their best selling item, the Kindle, but in a recent response to Barnes & Noble’s report of strong sales of its NOOKcolor, Amazon says it has sold “millions” of Kindles in the first 73 days of the holiday quarter.
Amazon released their “millions” statement on the site’s Kindle Community discussion forum. The statement was released to thank the all the Kindle customers for their support and patronage by making the Kindle Amazon’s best selling gift item, ever.
The “thank you” letter came just a week after B&N’s chairman Len Riggio told Publishers Weekly that the Nookcolors were selling at a rate of 18,000 units per day, and is barely able to keep up with demand.
This is not the first time that Amazon has conveniently pulled the attention away from its competition. The day before B&N introduced the Nookcolor in October, Amazon released news about its Pearl-based Kindle.
This back and forth banter still leaves people wondering exactly how many units these companies are pushing. Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney estimates Kindle sales for 2010 to been gauged around 5 million units, and foresees Amazon selling about 8.4 million Kindles in 2011.
With all this talk about the Nook v. Kindle people tend to forget about other e-reader retailers, such as the iPad. While technically considered an entertainment device, the iPad is a very capable e-reader and a recognizable competitor for strict e-readers. Market researcher iSuppli predicts that Apple will sell approximately 12.9 million iPads this year. Currently the device accounts for more than 90% of the tablet market.
More and more companies will be attempting to capitalize on on the e-reader trend come 2011. The Kindle, Nook, and iPads will be faced with competing e-readers from companies like Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Samsung, who plan to release their own versions of an e-reader in the very near future.
A native of Montana, Charlie is a proud graduate of Washington State University. When he wasn't enjoying his independence from parental guidance, Charlie studied advertising, with a fancy toward social media. If he's not writing, Charlie's gaming online or studying the fine art of karaoke at popular dojos like Ozzies and the Butler.
