Though Amazon has been proclaiming its impressive increase in 3rd-Gen Kindle sales, issuing press releases flaunting this claim, they really haven’t bared an actual figure.  Just how many Kindle devices were sold? From Amazon:

“Kindle is the best-selling product on Amazon.com for two years running and our new generation Kindles are continuing that momentum,” said Steven Kessel, senior vice president, Amazon Kindle. “Readers are excited about all that the new Kindle has to offer–50 percent better contrast, 20 percent faster page turns, 15 percent lighter, up to one month of battery life–and a new price of only $139.”

Well, that’s good news but this is rather puzzling than interesting. What we want to know is how much exactly. Apparently, Amazon is hesitant to shed enough light on this matter. Why?

PCMag has looked into it, quoting IDC mobile device analyst Susan Kevorkian, “There are a variety of reasons,” Kevorkian replied via email. “Short term, Amazon’s policy means that Kindle won’t get directly, and quite possibly unfavorably, compared to iPad in terms of shipments as the iPad grows in popularity and cannibalizes the e-reader market.” This makes a lot of sense. Compared to the figures flaunted by Apple’s iPad, their sales is substantially low.

Perhaps Kindle device is just one of Amazon’s strategies to boost their distribution of digital content, which is what Amazon is all about in the first place.  It only competes with the iPad in a narrow, highly specified sector.  As successful as the Kindle is, the mobile device still serves a niche set of the consumer electronics world.

This is partially for hype purposes, as the consumer electronics market is experiencing a new wave of thrills, by way of smart phones, tablets and other toys.  Sprint pulled a similar stunt with initial EVO sales, inadvertantly showing their vulnerabilities around its competition with Apple.