Amazon Has Sold Close to 250,000 Kindles

When Amazon first launched their Kindle book-reader, it didn’t take long to realize how popular it was. Or was it popular? It was actually quite difficult to tell, because shortly after the initial launch, it became increasingly difficult to acquire one of the book-readers. But, things couldn’t be that bad, right? I know personally, every time I visit Amazon’s site lately, it will show me a note about the Kindle and its limited supply. I admit, I figure it might have been a cheap move to just make the Kindle look more popular than it actually was.

According to recent numbers leaked to TechCrunch, I was wrong. Since the launch, Amazon has sold some 240,000 units, which is by all accounts incredible. It’s also nice to know that in this digital-age, there are still tons of people out there interested in relaxing to a good book. I fail in this regard.

The Kindle is far from done with the profits, however, and analysts predict that the growth will only continue, with a possible 2.2 million units sold by 2010, ultimately generating over $600 million in revenue. That assumes that each owner purchases a handful of books, but given they own the unit, we’d expect nothing less, right?

Source: TechCrunch

Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., predicts that Amazon is on track to sell 500,000 to 750,000 more Kindles over the next four quarters (including this one). He estimates that Kindle owners will buy an additional $120 to $150 worth of books and other content for each device…