Amazon Sold ‘Millions’ of Kindles in 2010 – Press Release
In a 4th quarter earnings press release published today by the largest online retailer, Amazon.com, the company reports that they have sold “millions” of their 3rd generation Kindles in the last fiscal quarter. CEO Jeff Bezos released this statement:
“Thanks to our customers, we achieved two big milestones,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales.”
Amazon is notoriously tight-lipped about their Kindle sales numbers. Estimates are all over the place, but all appear to be above the 5 million mark for 2010.
The release also says that ebooks are now outselling paperbacks. They said that for every 100 paperbacks they sell 115 Kindle ebooks. Back in July, Amazon announced that ebooks were outselling hardcovers by almost 50%.
Finally, Amazon released some figures about the number of ebooks available:
The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 810,000 books including New Releases and 107 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers. Over 670,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 74 New York Times Bestsellers. Millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.
The press release doesn’t give a whole lot of new information. However, it does help confirm for me that Amazon is still in the lead in the world of ebooks. The big question now is, can Barnes & Noble catch up or even beat Amazon in 2011?
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