With Christmas just 7 days away it’s a good time to be the masterminds behind the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, a device that is likely eclipsing the sales numbers compared to former Amazon Kindle devices.
According to the company the tablet has been selling more than 1 million units each week for the past three weeks.
The Thursday announcement is the first time the company has ever released public figures from Kindle sales (the Kindle e-reader debuted in 2007).
In a statement about Kindle Fire sales Dave Limp, Amazon’s vice president for the Kindle line said the device has sold “millions of units” over the past 11 weeks.
For quite some time now experts have predicted that the Amazon Kindle Fire would be the first competitor to the Apple iPad despite various user complaints about the devices design and lack of certain features. In any case with 64 million tablets predicted to sell this year Apple is still expected to be responsible for 47 million of those units.
Following news of Amazon Kindle Fire success the company’s shares rose by $2.72 (1.5%) to close at $182.93.
It should be noted that at this time the $199 price tag on the Amazon Kindle Fire means the company is losing money on each unit, cash they plan to make up when buys begin purchasing apps from the devices app store.
Have you purchased your very own Kindle Fire? What has been your reaction to the Android based tablet at this point?