The newest version of the Amazon Kindle is hot property, with sales already outperforming the older versions. They aren't however making it public exactly how many they have sold to date.

Steve Kessel, senior vice president of Amazon Kindle said “It’s still October and we’ve already sold more Kindle devices since launch than we did during the entire fourth quarter of last year—astonishing because the fourth quarter is the busiest time of year on Amazon, For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1. Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers–it's across the board, This is remarkable when you consider that we've been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months.”

Surprisingly, the sales appear to be good across the board, even though early analyst reports suggested that the Apple iPad would kill E readers before they got off the ground. In-Stat, another analyst firm suggest that by 2014 the units sold will be around 35 million.

The relatively cheap price of the Amazon Kindle is surely helping the high volume of sales, however their nearest competitor Barnes & Noble are apparently designing a colour e-book reader. Whether this is needed or not is open to debate.

KitGuru says: Have you bought an E-Reader? Share your views

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