Amazon Sells Kindle in the Millions

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With Apple opening the virtual doors of its own eBook store, Amazon will have a strong competitor in this particular business. Although the iPad is more than an eBook reader, the device is more than capable to be used as one. In fact it has its own eBook reading interface which looks pretty interesting so far.

Therefore you’d expect Amazon to try to protect its business as much as possible and convince people interested in reading digital versions of their favorite books to go for a Kindle instead of an iPad.

And what better way of advertising one’s business than by simply throwing official numbers to the public? Apple has mastered this particular quality and virtually any official keynote starts with numbers and stats that impress the audience. Before the iPad was launched Steve Jobs told everyone how Apple is a $50 billion company. Later during the keynote he said that $75 million people already know how to use the iPad since they already own an iPhone or an iPod touch. Now that’s the way to advertise your success and convince others to purchase one of your products.

So what does Amazon do about its Kindle-related business? Well the giant will tell you that it has sold millions of Kindles. But how many Kindles did it really sell? How many Kindle 2 and how many Kindle DX? How many units were shipped in the U.S. and how many were sent abroad? How many eBooks have been downloaded so far?

Here’s what Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s famous CEO did say about Amazon’s Q4 2009 financial numbers:

Millions of people now own Kindles. And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.

So how many million Kindles did you sell Amazon?