Amazon’s Kindle Fire – 95,000 Sales on First Day

By Gilbert Falso :: 1:58 PM

Last Wednesday, Amazon launched its long-awaited tablet, the Kindle Fire.

Though it won’t be released until November, Amazon and its retail partners, such as Best Buy, began taking pre-orders for the $199 tablet, and expect to ship it in time for the holidays.

95,000 pre-orders were taken for the tablet, both through Amazon’s website, as well as through its channel partners, according to a survey run by digital marketing firm eDataSource.

To put these numbers in perspective, Apple sold 300,000 first generation iPads on their first day, but it’s still an impressive number given that the tablet doesn’t exist yet – customers are only pre-ordering.

eDataSource was able to tabulate these figures by tracking email purchase receipts across 800,000 user inboxes.

The Fire’s $199 price point is an interesting topic, given that recent reports peg the cost to build the tablet at close to $210. Clearly, Amazon is pushing it as a loss leader, hoping that new Fire users will flock to Amazon’s online storefront for e-books and other media.

IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service, the firm that generated the $210 figure said in their report, “The real benefit of the Kindle Fire to Amazon will not be in selling hardware or digital content, rather, the Kindle Fire, and the content demand it stimulates, will serve to promote sales of the kinds of physical goods that comprise the majority of Amazon’s business.”