Amazon sees Kindle sales surge on Black Friday

Computerworld - Black Friday proved to be the best yet for the Kindle e-reader and tablet devices, while the Kindle Fire tablet remains Amazon's top-selling product, the company said today.

The group of Kindle devices last Friday sold four times the amount sold on Black Friday in 2010, Amazon said in a statement. Those devices include the $79 Kindle, $99 Kindle Touch, $149 Kindle Touch 3G and the $199 Kindle Fire, first introduced Sept. 28.

Dave Limp, vice president for Amazon Kindle, said the quadruple increase came atop a strong Black Friday one year ago. He said many customers are buying multiple Kindles, and that trend is expected to continue today with Cyber Monday sales.

Target's vice president of marketing, Nik Nayar, said the Kindle Fire was the best-selling tablet in its stores on Friday. A Best Buy official also said the Kindle device sales were hot, but didn't elaborate.

Amazon is apparently benefiting from overall improvements in Black Friday and online sales, including those made from mobile devices. Online sales during the holidays should be up by 15% in the U.S., ComScore said last week.

A survey by Wakefield Research also found that 70% of mobile shoppers expect to make more purchases from smartphones and tablets this holiday season.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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