Monday Evening Links > Kindle sales sends Amazon's stock up 9%

Citigroup said on Monday that Amazon.com Inc's Kindle electronic book reader appears to be selling much better than expected and could double a previous estimate for units sold this year, sending shares in the online retailer up 9 percent.

"Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world," Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to clients. He kept a "buy" rating on the share.

Mahaney estimates Amazon will sell up to 380,000 Kindles in 2008, up from a previous forecast of 190,000, noting that adoption rate would be similar to the first year of sales for Apple's media-playing iPod. He sees Amazon selling up to 150,000 Kindles in the fourth quarter alone.

Mahaney also expects Kindle and related revenue of more than $1 billion by 2010, compared with a previous view of $400 million to $750 million.

said by Dogfather:

I think I would rather spend about the same amount of $$$ on one those Asus micro-PCs and not be forever tied to Amazon.