If you were hoping to snag one of Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablets before the school season hits full swing, you’re out of luck. Amazon announced this morning that the Kindle Fire is officially out of stock.
Of course, I’d wager that the Fire isn’t really out of stock. What seems more likely is that Amazon just yanked their inventory from the site. Amazon is planning a media event on September 6th, and yanking their stock would be an effective way to create artificial demand for whatever products they unveil there.
With the Kindle Fire completely unavailable the entire week leading up to the event, potential customer are likely to be much more excited when something new is released. Amazon also announced that the Kindle Fire has 22% of the U.S. tablet market – but they conveniently forgot to provide any data to back that up.
Of course, if the Kindle Fire was really as popular as Amazon wants you to believe, they wouldn’t have to create artificial demand, now would they? You don’t see Apple yanking products from their website pre-launch…
Sure, the Kindle Fire could actually have 22% market share – but there’s a good reason why Amazon doesn’t provide any evidence. It’s also possible that the Kindle Fire is legitimately out of stock – but that’s some pretty convenient timing…
Looks like Amazon is pretty desperate to do whatever it takes to get an edge over Apple’s rumored $200-300 iPad Mini…
Amazon’s full press release can be found below:
In just 9 months, Kindle Fire captures 22% of U.S. tablet sales
10 of the top 10 best-selling items on Amazon since Kindle Fire launched are Kindle devices and content
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 30, 2012– (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Less than one year ago, Amazon introduced Kindle Fire—combining 15 years of innovation into a single, fully-integrated, end-to-end service for customers. Kindle Fire quickly became the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon.com, earning over 10,000 5-star customer reviews, and is the #1 best-selling product across the millions of items available onAmazon since its introduction 48 weeks ago. Today, Amazon announced that Kindle Fire is sold out, and that in just nine months, Kindle Fire has captured 22% of tablet sales in the U.S.
“We’re grateful to the millions of customers who have made Kindle Fire the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “This has been a big year for digital products on Amazon—all of the top 10 sellers on Amazon.com since Kindle Fire launched just less than a year ago are digital products. Kindle Fire is sold out, but we have an exciting roadmap ahead—we will continue to offer our customers the best hardware, the best prices, the best customer service, the best cross-platform interoperability, and the best content ecosystem.”
Kindle Fire offers customers a vast selection of digital content—over 22 million movies, TV shows, apps, games, books, magazines and more—in one seamless, end-to-end experience, making it easy for customers to browse, discover and purchase. Since Kindle Fire launched last September, all of the top 10 products on Amazon—across all products—are digital products.
