Amazon sells over one million Kindles

WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse

The Kindle Fire is displayed at a news conference in New York. ‘Kindle Fire is the most successful product we’ve ever launched,’ says Amazon official Dave Limp. AP photo

Amazon said Dec. 15 that it is selling more than one million Kindles a week and the new Kindle Fire tablet computer is its top-selling item.

“Kindle Fire is the most successful product we’ve ever launched. It is the best-selling product across all of Amazon for 11 straight weeks,” Amazon Kindle vice president Dave Limp said in a statement.

Demand is accelerating’
“We have already sold millions of units, and we are building millions more to meet the high demand. In fact, demand is accelerating, Kindle Fire sales increased week over week for each of the
past three weeks.”

Amazon, which rarely releases Kindle sales figures, said it had sold well over one million Kindle devices a week for the past three weeks.

Besides the Kindle Fire, which went on sale in mid-November, Amazon offers a range of Kindle electronic book readers.

“Our family of Kindle e-ink readers are close behind Kindle Fire on the Amazon.com bestseller list,” Limp said. “In fact we’ve seen many customers buy two Kindles both a Kindle Fire and a Kindle or Kindle Touch this holiday season.”

The Kindle Fire costs $199, less than half the price of the cheapest iPad from tablet market leader Apple. Amazon also said that it will release a software update to improve the performance of the Kindle Fire within two weeks.