Amazon says Kindle Fire is its best-selling product, but won't reveal numbers
Amazon on Monday touted the success of its newly launched Kindle Fire, revealing it is the retailer's best-selling product, though it still won't disclose any actual sales figures.
The company revealed that this year's Black Friday, the name given to the largest sales day of the year, was the best ever for Amazon's Kindle family of products. In particular, the Amazon Kindle Fire, a color touchscreen tablet that competes more directly with Apple's iPad, has been the bestselling product across all of Amazon since it was first introduced eight weeks ago.
"Even before the busy holiday shopping weekend, we'd already sold millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire was the bestselling product across all of Amazon.com. Black Friday was the best ever for the Kindle family - customers purchased 4X as many Kindle devices as they did last Black Friday - and last year was a great year," said Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle.
"In addition, we're seeing a lot of customers buying multiple Kindles - one for themselves and others as gifts - we expect this trend to continue on Cyber Monday and through the holiday shopping season."
Amazon's press release also features comments from executives at Target and Best Buy who are praising the success of the Kindle Fire. In fact, Target said that the Kindle Fire was its best-selling tablet on Black Friday. Target began selling the iPad in late 2010.
But for all of the success the Kindle Fire has apparently had, Amazon has declined to reveal any specific sales figures for the device. It's the same strategy the company has employed with previous devices in the Kindle family.
In fact, Amazon has long maintained that previous versions of the Kindle were its best-selling products across the retailer's entire online storefront without revealing any numbers. Apple, meanwhile, continues to experience record setting quarters with its iPad lineup, selling 11.2 million in the last quarter alone.
The Kindle Fire, which first became available earlier this month, has been viewed as a low-cost tablet that will compete with and potentially drive sales away from Android-powered tablets, rather than Apple's iPad. One study released last week found that tablet demand has increased by 130 percent thanks to the introduction of the Kindle Fire and growing popularity of the iPad.
The company revealed that this year's Black Friday, the name given to the largest sales day of the year, was the best ever for Amazon's Kindle family of products. In particular, the Amazon Kindle Fire, a color touchscreen tablet that competes more directly with Apple's iPad, has been the bestselling product across all of Amazon since it was first introduced eight weeks ago.
"Even before the busy holiday shopping weekend, we'd already sold millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire was the bestselling product across all of Amazon.com. Black Friday was the best ever for the Kindle family - customers purchased 4X as many Kindle devices as they did last Black Friday - and last year was a great year," said Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle.
"In addition, we're seeing a lot of customers buying multiple Kindles - one for themselves and others as gifts - we expect this trend to continue on Cyber Monday and through the holiday shopping season."
Amazon's press release also features comments from executives at Target and Best Buy who are praising the success of the Kindle Fire. In fact, Target said that the Kindle Fire was its best-selling tablet on Black Friday. Target began selling the iPad in late 2010.
But for all of the success the Kindle Fire has apparently had, Amazon has declined to reveal any specific sales figures for the device. It's the same strategy the company has employed with previous devices in the Kindle family.
In fact, Amazon has long maintained that previous versions of the Kindle were its best-selling products across the retailer's entire online storefront without revealing any numbers. Apple, meanwhile, continues to experience record setting quarters with its iPad lineup, selling 11.2 million in the last quarter alone.
The Kindle Fire, which first became available earlier this month, has been viewed as a low-cost tablet that will compete with and potentially drive sales away from Android-powered tablets, rather than Apple's iPad. One study released last week found that tablet demand has increased by 130 percent thanks to the introduction of the Kindle Fire and growing popularity of the iPad.
Comments
"Well, how many did you sell?"
"How many did you sell?"
"Ten million units."
"We sold more than that."
"Can I see your numbers?"
"? No."
Of course, thy could also play the Samsung game and simply report sales as "smooth".
The Kindle Fire should have been a 10'' tablet with a lot more features. Shoulda worked directly with google, instead of making their own software....
Must have been really great
I'd rather sell 1 million units of something that makes a profit on each unit sale than sell 10 million units of something that makes a loss on each unit sale.
But will the 10 milion units be tied to software that when people buy from that will make a profit?*15 books*
It will be interesting to see how the return numbers look after Christmas, but even then, I suspect that the Fire is going to do quite well.
I'm not surprised. It's at the price point where it's an impulse purchase. For most people, it's a lot easier to drop $200 on a gift than $500+.
It will be interesting to see how the return numbers look after Christmas, but even then, I suspect that the Fire is going to do quite well.
But will it sell as well as the HP Touchpad is the question of the day....
The only known quantity is 4x YoY for Black Friday but that still leaves it as 4n. And even though Kindle Fire has an internet browser the default server-side processing will fudge the numbers when trying to figure out the number of devices in use. Hopefully some savvy analytics company will be able to figure out a decent way to gauge its polarity in tablet market.
I'm not surprised. It's at the price point where it's an impulse purchase. For most people, it's a lot easier to drop $200 on a gift than $500+.
It will be interesting to see how the return numbers look after Christmas, but even then, I suspect that the Fire is going to do quite well.
The return numbers? From the people who don't give us the sales number??
I find Amazon's tactics very annoying. Clearly they've massaged the numbers from the beginning with Kindle and it's too late to reverse it now.
Don't know what the criteria was for best selling product on Amazon - but it is clearly embarrassing to them, so it must be some kind of stretch. Otherwise why not reveal the numbers???
But will the 10 milion units be tied to software that when people buy from that will make a profit?*15 books*
I take your point, and I can see that for say the video game industry which have used that model for a long time, it's clearly profitable, but the licensing fees for a Playstation game are substantially higher than they will be for Kindle Fire apps.
They'll need to sell a lot of copies of Angry Birds to catchup the profit per unit that Apple make.......
I'm not surprised. It's at the price point where it's an impulse purchase. For most people, it's a lot easier to drop $200 on a gift than $500+.
It will be interesting to see how the return numbers look after Christmas, but even then, I suspect that the Fire is going to do quite well.
I agree. $200 I'll spend on a gift. $500 I'll spend on myself!
The only numbers that Android sellers seem eager to release are the shipped numbers which means tablets sitting on store shelves, not the actual numbers of tablets sold to people who are buying them.
I take your point, and I can see that for say the video game industry which have used that model for a long time, it's clearly profitable, but the licensing fees for a Playstation game are substantially higher than they will be for Kindle Fire apps.
They'll need to sell a lot of copies of Angry Birds to catchup the profit per unit that Apple make.......
But doesn't Amazon have free Apps of the Day where they piss of developers because no one is downloading apps after it becomes the app of the day?
A lot of people are going to be returning that cheap mini tablet once they get theirs and they see how it actually performs and they realize that there's a lot that they can't do with it. I wonder how many returns they've already gotten? They obviously won't be releasing those numbers either.
The only numbers that Android sellers seem eager to release are the shipped numbers which means tablets sitting on store shelves, not the actual numbers of tablets sold to people who are buying them.
HP>Android. That is all.
Really? It's also their NEWEST product...people will BUY IT, TRY IT and UNLOAD IT until the word gets around. Garbage, just garbage (And yes, I do own an iPad2).
So.....the iPad 2 is garbage?