Washington - Amazon said on Thursday that it is
selling more than one million Kindles a week and the new Kindle Fire
tablet computer is its best-selling item.
"Kindle Fire is the
most successful product we've ever launched - it's the best-selling
product across all of Amazon for 11 straight weeks," Amazon Kindle vice
president Dave Limp said in a statement.
"We've already sold
millions of units, and we're building millions more to meet the high
demand," Limp said. "In fact, demand is accelerating - Kindle Fire sales
increased week over week for each of the past three weeks."
Amazon,
which rarely releases Kindle sales figures, said it had sold well over
one million Kindle devices for the past three weeks.
Besides the Kindle Fire, which went on sale in mid-November, Amazon offers a range of Kindle electronic book readers.
"Our
family of Kindle e-ink readers are close behind Kindle Fire on the
Amazon.com bestseller list," Limp said. "In fact we've seen many
customers buy two Kindles - both a Kindle Fire and a Kindle or Kindle
Touch - this holiday season."
The Kindle Fire costs $199, less than half the price of the cheapest iPad from tablet market leader Apple.
The
Kindle Fire has a 18cm screen, smaller than the iPad's 24.6cm, connects
to the web using Wi-Fi and is powered by Google's Android software.
It
does not have a camera or the 3G connectivity featured on other tablets
but it gives buyers easy access to Amazon's online store, which sells
books, music, movies, television shows, games and other content.