kindlerama.com

TechCrunch says someone with direct knowledge of Amazon’s sales figures has told them the company has sold 240,000 Kindles since last November. They figure that this part of Amazon’s business, while still minuscule, has managed to bring in over $100 million so far, which they point out would already surpass what a Citi analyst predicted for 2008 a couple of months ago.

They also mention a more ambitious prediction that seems in line with the 240,000 figure:

Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., predicts that Amazon is on track to sell 500,000 to 750,000 more Kindles over the next four quarters (including this one). He estimates that Kindle owners will buy an additional $120 to $150 worth of books and other content for each device, bringing the total revenues over that time period to somewhere between $225 million and $355 million. Based on that, he values the Kindle as a $1 billion business for Amazon.

so, does any of this really matter to regular readers? Not so much, except that the more Kindles Amazon sells, the greater its power will grow over the ebook space. Whether that will be good or not for publishing is still up in the air, although I suspect the more power Amazon has, the better the prices and bigger the selection.

“We Know How Many Kindles Amazon Has Sold: 240,000″ [TechCrunch]