Amazon rumored to have sold 240,000 Kindles
By Nilay Patel 
posted Aug 1st 2008 8:23PM
posted Aug 1st 2008 8:23PM
Amazon's been pretty cagey with Kindle sales numbers, except to say that it sold out the first batch in 5.5 hours and that more are finally arriving. Still, you can't keep a secret forever, and TechCrunch says they have it on good authority that Bezos and Co. have sold some 240,000 Kindles since November. Adding it all up, that's good enough for $100M in total revenue so far -- which is about what Wall Street's been predicting. Of course, that's chump change compared to the $1B annual business some analysts think Kindle can be, but you gotta start somewhere -- and a quarter-mil out the gate in the first year ain't bad at all.
and two years later.. Steve Jobs releases the iRead.
Instant success?
if they add a iTunes book store
Jobs has already declared that people don't read. Maybe he meant his customers can't read.
but iDon't read.
Apple fans can't read, so they simply buy the best product out there without being able to read the price tag until too late!
It actually is a nice philosophy: get the best thing out there and don't settle for cheap sh*t.
Engadget should just automatically add a "first post" by "Random Jerk" to every article posted, just to discourage people like you from posting.
Or they would just delete the post ;)
In other news 240,000 people have a lot of free time and money to spend
That's ridiculous. I love to read, always have. But don't have time to read as much as I would like. In the time I've owned my Kindle, I've been able to read a little here and there of multiple books and have easily ready 3-4 times as many books as I would normally have read in the same time period, and my reading speed is increasing, meaning my little spare time is better suited to reading.
I guess people don't get it yet. Most arguments against the Kindle come from people who've never laid a hand on one or worse - iTools who think their iPhones (or other tiny backlit screen device) is good enough for an ebook. I tried reading a book on my Handspring Visor back in the day. Painfully poor experience. I tried reading on my Meizu Miniplayer, only marginally better because of resolution and font.
To those commenting on the bulk of the Kindle - STFU. Have you actually held one? It's literally the size of a novella. As for ugly, yeah, it's not pretty, but Apple can't have the total market on craptastic design.
:)
@ Chris
It's a pity all that reading hasn't improved your grammar.
Gee you sure got him there, mymaclife.
call me when the Kindle has an accelerometer...
Then we are pissed off every article we read.
I'll believe it when actual figures are presented. So far I think Amazon is just hyping up its own product.
By the number of product feedbacks (3928 at the time being) I would say the numbers are around 10000-20000 at most. Every time you buy something Amazon asks you (by email) to leave a feedback and leaving a feedback is a common thing.
I do not believe that only 4% of the customers have written a feedback about their $350 product (which they are either proud of it or hate it).
You are kidding right?
I would put the percentage of people that leave feedback, from products purchased on Amazon, around the same as the percentage of football pool winners reporting their winnings on their tax returns.
I buy from Amazon ALL the time and even signed up for a Prime Membership last year.
I have never once posted a review.
I have bough three kindles now, guess how many times i have reviewed it. yep 0. So since we are all pulling numbers out of our asses i am going to go out on a limb and say that amazon has sold 500 billion kindles. If you look you will see the vast majority of those reviews were posted before the first kindle even shipped.
I have a kindle, and did not leave a review. I find most of the people who leave reviews are either meat puppets or perhaps a little "meticulous". I do read the reviews though, so maybe I should start doing the review thing.
One of my company's litigators gave my father (our CEO) a Kindle for his birthday yesterday.
I played with it today, I was unimpressed and am beginning to think we are paying his firm way too much.
Kindles? That gots nothing on my shinny 3g iphone!
Yeah except I can get free internet and how much does yours cost?
I'm one of the buyers; I enjoy The Kindle a lot.
I travel a lot and also use it when doing cardio (exercise bike).
Read and work out at the same time? Wow that's actually pretty impressive...
It really is ugly. Add that to the lack of PDF support and it's a no-buy for me. The Sony Reader is great. It supports PDF reflowing, RTF, and even the soon-to-be-standard EPUB formats. Sure, I'd like to have over-the-air purchases on the Sony Reader like Kindle has, but frankly I refuse to buy anything DRMed anyway (or at least a DRM I can't remove), so it's a moot point.
Maybe if they weren't so fucking ugly, in color and had a more reasonable price point they could sell more.
Kindle 2.0 perhaps?
240K is a drop in the bucket in the publishing industry, even assuming the average owner has purchased a book a month.
The Kindle tries too hard to copy the paperback in presentation of material, with the disadvantage of an ugly form factor and high price.
This is not the future of the e-book.
240K Kindle users means that now over 6% of books purchased on Amazon are now Kindle versions of the book. Soon enough more then half of all books purchased on Amazon are going to be purchased wirelessly by people that use the Kindle to read the books.
And how that affects the book industry? Well Amazon just happens to be the biggest book store in the world.
That's odd...
I work in the convention business, and a lot of the people I meet are real techheads. They collect all of the newest gadgets - whatever gives them something to do when out of town.
Zero Kindles.
ok, can we stop acting surprised that people who don't read books don't buy kindles?
umm, yeah, because "tech heads" are busy reading stuff on websites via laptops/pcs or on their phones, oh they generally doesn't use e-ink to display.. although you can browse sites on a kindle, but it's slow.
I agree, I haven't seen one in public live anywhere and I would through my network of people, I think they are also hyping own product. The concept is great though, but I don't believe these numbers a bit.
"Fas"
Why bother with such a bulky device. The iPhone or Touch is all you need to get your eBooks.
???
I own both an iPhone and an iPod Touch.. I couldn't immagine reading a book on them.
My kindle lasts me an entire week long business trips with a few hours of reading per day on one charge. I don't get all of the hate on the Kindle, it's not for everyone but it's a cool piece of kit for actual book readers. The whispernet is awesome too.
Have you ever tried reading a backlit screen for a couple hours on end? It's strains the eyes and makes it a chore.. e-ink is in it's infancy, but the Kindle, Sony readers, Illiad etc are not bad early devices. Each has their own pros and cons of course... and the cons certainly outweigh the pros if you don't read books in the first place.. But for someone who reads multiple books a week/month or simultaneously, they are pretty darn handy. And with the kindle, you don't have to drive to the library to get a new book, or wait for someone to donate what your looking for.. Soon the gas will cost more than purchasing a book anyways..
they must be frowing 240,000 FUGLY kindles in the sea for fish, know body reads books its all blueray, dvd, television
a kindle is like something out of the 1920's
Your grammar and spelling is something out of the 1920's......B.C.
After reading your comments, it's obvious that you don't really read, either. I teach high school in one of the worst districts in the country; yet, somehow, my remedial students have a better grasp on the english language than you do.
I'd also have to question your grasp of time, claiming that this is similar to something from the 1920's.
Anyway, back to Harrison's on my Palm...
When criticizing people about their grammar, you should know that it's supposed to be 1920s not 1920's.
ooooooooooooooooooooh snap!
A friend got a Kindle a few months ago. I have to say I was underwhelmed by the idea until I held one in my hands. The lightbulb went off and I think they're a pretty neat thing. Expensive, sure, but so are books. And really, for the price of 10-12 hardcovers, it's not totally outrageous.
a kindle is like something out of the 1920's, PURE SHAME FOR THE SAD PEOPLE USING THEM, I fill sorry for anyone having to suffer the torture of using a kindle
Please do not fill sorry for me, it sounds gross...
damn, 1920's sound pretty awesome.
That's 240,000 people who must not understand how a library works.
That's one person who doesn't understand the difference between a 30,000 sqft building and something the size of a modestly large paperback.
Some people, namely students, would prefer to carry around something that's 7.5" x 5.3" x 0.7" instead of the dozens of text books, prep guides, and syllabi (my sister has an 800 page syllabus for her physiology class at med school) required for daily usage.
I should be more clear. One Kindle can be the equivalent to one library. Few people enjoy lugging around 20 books in loads of 3-4 (highly typical of college kids)
If you go to the library, it will cost you the price of fuel, wear and tear on your vehicle; to find that the book is not in the library. Oh yeah, that sounds like fun. With the Kindle, you can actually preview the book, for free, and purchase it for the price of 2 gallons of gas. That, my friend is a no brainer.
It still too expensive. Give me a color screen and a lower price, then I'd consider it. Borrowing books from my public library is much cheaper.
Why do you need colour? Print is Black and white.....
Unless you want a picturebook :)
same, and i think this would get a larger audience if it had color. i think comic fans would love this, as i would as well.
@matt.
For what this thing costs, I should be able to use it for more than just reading a black and white book. Remember when the iPod didn't have video and Jobs said that people didn't watch videos on their portable players. Then he felt the pressure and now all iPods play videos and iTunes has sold millions of videos. Same thing here with the Kindle. I want my $250 investment do to more than just show me black and white graphics. Give me the ability to look at my pictures in color as well. Why not? $250 it still $250. And $250 it still a lot of money.
Low-priced color e-ink just isn't a realistic expectation. Give it 3 years then maybe, but not before that.
Have you ever driven to the library, only to find that the book you want is not there?
Not with Kindle. You can even review the book when you want to...for free. No gas, no tolls, no problem. Buy one if you like to read, or go to the library and come home empty handed and a few dollars short.
If the thing wasn't so damn expensive, I'd probably be in line for on of these. Oh well...
and... reply.
First to say the Kindle really needs to succeed. I believe the future of e-books are inexorably linked with the Kindle's success.
Publishers look to it as a metric for whether or not people actually want e-books... and even understand the advantages of e-Ink. If the Kindle fails, publishers will just say nobody wants to read ebooks, and given their fears of piracy, they'll just bail on the whole ebook idea all together.
Amazon's done a great job with the Kindle. The ONLY thing they need to do is put away the ugly stick and design a nice looking v2.0, something that's as artistic as the Sony Reader.
-Pie
I'll admit... I'm surprised. I felt this was just a transition technology... you know, "oh, that's nice, we'll wait for the REAL thing."
I seriously think who ever buys hundreds of books on a kindle, or regular books in general, and read them a couple hours everyday have toooooo much time on their hand. Also I seriously don't understand how one can subscribe to membership like B&N and buy hundreds of dollars on novels to read.
You think people who read have too much time on their hands?!?! You act as though reading is a bad thing. I often wish I had 2-3 hours more a day (as in a 26-27 hour day) just so I can have have dedicated reading time. I seriously have to question the intelligence of anyone who would challenge the importance of reading - though you could be one of those morons who I hear say crap like "reading is for rich people".
If you spent less time online talking to your imaginary friends you might have time to read.
yea...because hanging out with friends makes me have no life. Also, I have better things to do like volunteer at the animal shelter or learn html. Do you really think reading (in spare time) 10 books a month improve your intelligence? 3 is enough in my opinion. I have to wonder, are you guys out of college? Is that why you have so much time on your hand?
That is pretty amazing, if true. Selling a quarter of a million of any tech device over $350 is no mean feat, esp. something as niche as the Kindle. Amazon has to be thrilled.
Why is there so much hate towards the Kindle? Some of these comments are downright disturbing.
What's a 'kindle?'
"Zed"?
Zed's dead baby, Zed's Dead"
LMAO, U got roasted for that "1st post", don't worry. We've all been there once i think. LOL
So now we know, there are at least 240,00 idiots in the world
i assume you are one of them
you just made it 240,001
@z0phi3l
Actually, it's probably more accurate to deduce that there are at least 240,000 people in the US that actually read, despite what his Jobness thinks.Maybe Jobs thinks he's the only one that can read and is planning a gold plated paper thin eBook reader just for himself called the iRead.
My Kindle rocks.
If you disagree then you are dumb and I win at the internet.
First to what? Get lowest ranked?
If the Kindle dies then it's not yet time for dedicated e-book readers. It'll undoubtedly stay a niche product for a long time. I would think a more versatile device would be needed to have those readers see more widespread usage. It should at least be able to browse the internet or play games or something. Lack of color is, well, downright annoying in the day and age.
Steffen, it doesn't seem that you read a lot. The Kindle DOES browse the Internet. The screen is E-Ink. Current technology in E-Ink precludes the fast response that playing games requires and color versions are still in early prototype stage.
This is a device that is optimized for reading books. It does not compromise that function by trying to do too many other things.
By analogy, my phone has a camera but the quality is inherently limited by the size of lens that you can fit into that form. It is convenient for quick snaps, but when I want to really take a photo, I bring out my Canon.
Use the right tool for the right job.
Kindle ! I think they asked some Aussie consultancy about what to call the new product and they replied by phone " it lights up right? lets call it a candle"
Would have been a good joke if it actually lit up. E-ink isn't backlit.
240,000? I just sold my 240,001st Kindle. Turns out the secret is peanut butter. At any rate, in your face Amazon and literacy!
Amazon needs to use their clout and screw the textbook companies into doing all their stuff digitally. I work for a community college, and some of the 3-credit hour courses have a text/workbook combo that costs more than the course.
'Big textbook' will never allow that to happen.
A problem with eBooks is that it's difficult to takes notes on them. It's much easier to use sticky notes, highlighters, etc. on physical textbooks.
I own the Sony reader and love it for casual reading. I really want Kindle (which came out after Sony's) because of Amazon's digital library and its wireless download from virtually anywhere. But I want to get a few more miles out of my Sony... and just maybe there will be rumblings of a K2.0... although that doesn't seem likely this year.
cant they make something better looking...
and Apple rumoured to have sold 1 million iPhones.
... and this relates to the Kindle how? I'm fairly sure people are buying the iPhone for a reason other than its ebook "capabilities."
I am another satisfied Kindle owner and after 6 months of use I have read dozens of books but all free and yes there are lots as in thousands available for free if you just look. This means for me I am money ahead and I have bot had to drive to get to a library just download and go. If I hade to chose between my Cell phone or my Kindle It would be a easy win for the Kindle.
Amos
Bought two of them; one for me, one for my wife. Has changed the way we read, have been buying and just getting a lot more to read (including free books; there's lots and lots of classics available via Feedbooks.com and others, don't buy them @ Amazon). Sorry I didn't get it sooner.
And, much like how I got my wife an iPod that first Christmas it was available (5GB! Wow! You'll never fill it up!) I'll get future iterations as a need/desire arises for them.
Kudos to Amazon for perhaps finally mainstreaming the eBook reader.
Has anyone seen one of these things in the wild? Hell, I work in Seattle next to Amazon and have still yet to see one.. 240k? I think not.
I'll admit it. I'm one of the 240k dorks that bought one.. And I use it daily, spend too much on books in general, and love it!
MyridoM
Who are you calling a dork?! =D
I actually bought two. One for my wife and one for my our son. It was to help them with their English (Their first language is Thai). I load them up with books and then the matching Audible.com selection.
That way they can listen to the words as they read it helping them improve pronunciation in English.
Also the built in dictionary and search features help them a lot.
All in all I think it was a much better investment of my money than the ESL classes I started them in. And they are both much happier using the Kindle when they have some free time than trying to make it to some class at the university.
I do agree the thing is major FUGLY (Amazon needs to do a deal with some designers from Apple) and the price is still too high. If they could cut it to about half then it would be a great product.
I look at the Kindle and eBook as first gen stuff, like the Apple Newton and Palm 1. Give it another 5 years or so.
i personaly prefer a good old fashioned book and a comfortable chair to sit in and relax with the book why can you all do the same best way
Love the Kindle, but I have yet to see another person use one... and I live in NYC =\
I WOULD like a Kindle type of reader, but as usual they do not support all the formats that are out there.
It's the main reason I am looking at the EEE1000H, I know it is overkill but it also means that I can read at night, surf if I feel like it and am not limited to any propriety format.
Add that it can also be used to read cbr (comics)... and the extra is worth it.
The only downside is that the battery life is not NEAR the same, but I can get extras.
240K Kindles sold?
They have got to be kinding me!