Guesses on Kindle Sales Figures?

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Permalink Reply by David Adelman on July 14, 2008 at 7:52am

Well, I don't know about the end of 2008, but I'm almost definitely that it's already past the 20,000 mark. I was reading somewhere - I think it was on Amazon itself - that monthly Kindle sales are somewhere around the 48,000 mark. So, in my opinion, the Kindle isn't going anywhere. :)

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Permalink Reply by abhi on July 14, 2008 at 10:23am

actually around the 48,000 mark seems a reasonable number. and i think it's brilliant Amazon is keeping the numbers secret - a big competitive advantage and also generates a lot of free publicity.

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Permalink Reply by KT421 on July 16, 2008 at 5:36pm

I've only seen two others in the Washington DC area- one on the Metro and one in the Student Union on the UMD campus.

So, my estimate would be on the low end, but I'm not going to give a number since I've always done terribly at those "guess the number of beans in the jar" games.

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Permalink Reply by Marjorie Lipan on July 16, 2008 at 10:21pm

To quote my blog:

Edward Baig's comparison in USA Today leans in favor of the Kindle (one week after the Kindle's introduction, 2007); and Travis Hudson of PC World (June 13, 2008) looks at marketing primarily the Kindle, but says the Sony sales are also up. He says the Kindle sales are "no more than 50,000" so far since its release. However, A Kindle Homepage says that sales by early July have been 300,000.

The Kindle Homepage also states the basis of the figures:

The device sold out about five hours after launch, sold over 200,000 units in its first six months (based on figures released by its Taiwan-based display-screen manufacturer), and is unlikely to look back after it reaches the one-million mark in Kindle units in circulation sometime early in 2009.

I think the biggest market is among those who travel, especially frequent fliers.

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Permalink Reply by 1001 noisy cameras on July 17, 2008 at 7:35pm

I have no idea on how to guess a hard number, but I am following the best sellers at Amazon in electronics on a regular basis, and I frequently see the Kindle sitting at the top. Considering the number of other popular electronics and gadgets it is jumping over, it looks quite promising for the Kindle in my estimation :)

If anyone knows the actual sales numbers for some of the other top selling electronics, then perhaps one can reverse engineer a ballpark estimate :)

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Permalink Reply by Crystal King on August 14, 2008 at 2:47pm

According to CNET:

August 11, 2008 3:45 PM PDT
Kindle sales pegged at $1 billion by 2010
Posted by Holly Jackson 2 comments

Sales of the Amazon Kindle may be higher than expected, according to CitiGroup analyst Mark Mahaney, who inferred once again that the e-reader is the Apple iPod of the book world.
(Credit: Amazon.com)

The analyst said Monday that he expects the Kindle to sell about 380,000 units in 2008. The figure is double that of his original sales estimate for the e-reader, and equal to the amount of iPods sold during the first year of release.

Mahaney wrote in a client note that the Kindle may become one of the hottest gifts of holiday season, citing the fact that Kindle is still topping Amazon's best-selling electronics list and customer reviews are positive and abundant.

He wrote that he expects the e-reader to contribute $1 billion in sales by 2010, making up 4 percent of the online retail giant's revenue.

Amazon shares rose almost 10 percent after the Citigroup announcement, closing at $88.09.

The device, which can access more than 150,000 books and hundreds of newspapers and blogs, debuted on Amazon.com in 2007 and was sold out for weeks after its release. It currently is priced at $359.
...
Definitely here to stay.

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