Amazon Shows Off Kindle 2
Amazon finally announced the Kindle 2 today after weeks of speculation from the blogosphere. Amazon made several improvements but most of them are just incremental enhancements. The price is still the same $359. Hopefully in this version Amazon has worked out their supply chain management issues. Since its launch the Kindle has suffered from supply issues. This past holiday season there was a 13 week wait on getting a new Kindle.
The bigger question is how Jeff Bezos can scale this beyond the Kindle device. Even though he has found a niche hardware business that is probably profitable it doesn’t scale to 100s of millions of people. Beyond the tech savvy affluent few, not many people are going to be shelling out $350 on a device with a singular purpose. Especially when you can get a netbook for roughly the same price.
The Kindle Frenzy
Ever since Jeff Bezos launched the Kindle he has underestimated demand. Back in March he issued an apology to customers because they sold out in less than 5 hours and it was a 6 week wait to get one. Now months later Bezos is still underestimating demand for his wireless reading device. If you go to Amazon.com and try and buy a Kindle you will get a 11-13 week wait time.
The Kindle has become the Wii of Christmas 2008. The Kindle ranks #4 on Amazon’s most popular list. Back in August TechCrunch estimated that Amazon had sold over 240K Kindles. Amazon is certainly well on its way to sell over a 1 million Kindles. The Kindle “frenzy” has alreay taken to eBay and Craigslist where people are trying to get up to $1K for this little device.
