Amazon.com Inc., The Global Leader in e-Commerce

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Amazon.com Inc., the global leader in e-commerce, reported in a press release that customers have been buying “well over” one million Kindle devices a week, for three consecutive weeks now. The tally of more than a million devices is across all the products in the Kindle family, including Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, Kindle Wi-Fi, and Kindle 3G with Keyboard. 

In Amazon’s press release, Dave Limp, an executive for the company, called Kindle Fire “the most successful product” Amazon has ever launched and asserted that customers are buying the product because of its simplicity. He also claimed that Kindle Fire makes it “easy [for users] to do the things they love” such as watching TV reruns and movies, surfing the Internet, reading, enjoying music, and playing games. 

Even though Amazon did not disclose the actual sales numbers for each device within the Kindle family, the press release was obviously aimed at promoting Kindle Fire, especially in the wake of some recent negative press where people have claimed to be disappointed with Kindle Fire, comparing it to the Apple iPad (the price of which starts at $499, a full 250% higher than the $199 Kindle Fire). 

Unfortunately, Amazon itself has muddied the water a bit by comparing Kindle Fire with the 
iPad in its product description, which says that Kindle Fire has a “vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle – same as an iPad.” As a result, the Amazon stock has been taking a hit for the past week. 

In a clear attempt to do damage control and instill confidence in both investors and customers, 
Mr. Limp also said that Amazon is seeing many people buying not just the newly released 
Kindle Fire tablet but also the original Kindle and the Kindle Touch e-reader.
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

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