Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Amazon Kindle sales continue to surge for third week

By | December 15, 2011, 9:17am PST

Summary: Kindle sales are holding steady at impressive rates, but the real test for Amazon will be selling these devices at comparable numbers after the holiday season.

Although Amazon suffered its first firestorm regarding the Kindle Fire earlier this week, sales for the Kindle brand overall continue to surge.

For the third week in a row, Amazon is selling more than 1 million Kindle devices per week. Those sales are likely helped by the recent release of a slew of brand-new and more advanced Kindles that were so perfectly launched right as the holiday season was getting underway. The real test for Amazon will be to see how well Kindle devices sell after December 26.

Nevertheless, the brand is certainly getting a significant boost with the $199 Kindle Fire, which is still the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product on Amazon.com since it was first introduced in September.

That actually shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. A recent survey from Retrevo found that more current and non-current tablet owners replied that they are planning to buy a Kindle Fire over the year’s other most popular tablet computer, the iPad, this holiday season. Maybe the Kindle Fire also got a boost from another poll from the same agency that posited the Kindle Fire might be the most manly gift this year.

So far, the iPad competition could be on point as Apple’s iPad sales in December are already looking lower than expected amid the popularity for the Kindle Fire and even the MacBook Air.

Cumulative exact shipping and sales figures aren’t known, but DigiTimes reported that Amazon was shipping between 3 and 4 million Kindle Fire units as of December 2.

Rounding out the Kindle set are the starter Kindle at $79, the Kindle Touch for $99 and the Kindle Touch 3G for $149.

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Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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Rumors are already circulating about iPad 3 coming in February.

There's a reason for the iPad decline, not to mention Kindle Fire is half the price of the lowest end iPad 2, which means the Kindle Fire is going to probably be outdated in about six months leaving all those poor owners in the dirt.
@ZombieSteveJobs The Kindle was not DESIGNED to compete with the iPad 2, so how does the iPad 3 coming out affect that - it was not designed to compete with that tablet either. Granted, they iPad 2 tables may drop in price by $100, but then the kind will still be 1/2 the price and geared towards using Amazon content. Some of us like that and see the value in the reader / tablet.
I'd like some numbers regarding returns, as well.

Between relatives, coworkers, and classmates, I know of 20 people who have bought the Fire since release. Most of them were in love with it for the first week. Within the first month of ownership, 18 of 20 have returned them. Only two continue to use and recommend it. The ones who returned it seem to all have the same complaints: Underwhelming, fraught with too many issues, especially navigation and media management.

It's a first gen device, I like to remind most of them. It's going to have problems. Amazon is essentially learning as they go, which is the typical lament of the early adopter. Future iterations of the Fire should be much stronger and THOSE iterations will be the game changers.
@Captiosus

This is not technically a first gen device because Amazon has had a ton of experience from their previous hardware generations. The original Kindle platform has generated a ton of useful feedback that they could have used to build a really solid device.

From what I can tell, that did not happen. The fire is the kind of device I would have expected from a company making its very first piece of hardware. Its just not there at all. Such a far cry from the very nice ereader platform they have.

Barnes and Noble however is just the opposite. They seemed to have learned from their previous iterations and have build a really solid device in the new nook which doesn't suffer from any of the glaring misses that the fire is on fire for in the press recently.
0 Votes
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Same here
wackoae Updated - 15th Dec
@Captiosus I only know of 3 people who got a Kindle Fire ... all of them are tech-savvy co-workers.

All 3 of them returned the device after a couple of weeks of nothing but frustration.
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The iPad's biggest problem?
x I'm tc 15th Dec
How darned big it is. Sorry, but the iPad is huge. Use a netbook or ultrabook (or Air or whatever) and get 10x the functionality in the same amount of space. The Kindle is the size these slates need to be for their intended purpose: light-weight gaming and media consumption on the go.
@jdakula
I concur. I have given my iPad to a family member who doesn't travel or go anywhere. These 7" tablets like the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet fulfill their intended purposes perfectly. Much easier to travel with since I have to take my work laptop with me. I have been very pleased with the 7" form factor after living with both sizes for quite a while. Also, much easier to take on the go for times like waiting at the doctor's office.
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Amazon's UK Kindle prices are way too high.
peter_erskine@... 15th Dec
Despite the fact that Britain's economy is in recession, they want a shocking 89 Pounds for the basic one, and 149 Pounds for the 3G. I reckon these steep prices must halve their sales. Another case of "rip-off Britain".
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Kindle Fire is not worth it
eco733 17th Dec
I have Nook Tablet and I also checked out Kindle Fire at BestBuy - Nook is much better in my opinion, it's like day and night in terms of device performance. Double the RAM of Nook Tablet definitely has a lot of performance impact on how quickly apps load and how quick the device is overall. Everyone who actually held Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet in their hands noted that Nook's screen is much better and brighter besides being laminated for reduced glare (not on Kindle or iPad). Nook Tablet is $224 if sign up for Barnes & Noble membership. 16 GB Nook's content capacity plus 32 GB via microSD card vs. 8 GB capacity of Kindle Fire with no expansion slot IS a big deal as portable tablets are all about doing things on the go. Cloud is way overrated - good for an occasional backup but not for content usage on Wi-Fi-only tablet on the go. Reading 11.5 hours battery life and 9 hours of video playback time vs. 8 hours for reading and 7.5 hours of video playback on Kindle Fire. Nook has microSD slot, microphone for Skype and physical volume controls on the side (neither is on Kindle).
Amazon's own web site has hundreds (almost 1300 so far) of reviews of Kindle Fire's new owners that gave it 1 or 2 star reviews because of choppy/laggy experience they got from this underpowered device. All pro reviewers on the web clearly voiced that Nook Tablet is a much better device with superior performance compared to Kindle Fire.
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