Kindle Fire Release Date: Amazon Builds Millions More to Keep Up With Demand

By CP News Briefs, Sunday, November 13, 2011

An Amazon source has confirmed that its order for the Kindle Fire has increased for a second time. According to Digitimes, over 5 million units have been ordered before the end of 2011.

Reports show that Amazon ordered 3.5 million units originally, but due to the high number of pre-orders for the device, they increased the order to 4 million in the middle of the third quarter.

The company estimates the demand to remain strong, if not stronger, until the end of this year. Last month, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos said that the company is “increasing capacity and building millions more than we’d already planned.”

The highly anticipated Kindle Fire will start shipping in the U.S. this week, with its price tag of less than half of Apple’s iPad 2. It is expected to be a huge hit as the holiday season approaches.

The Kindle Fire will launch with Amazon Prime, a membership subscription for $79 a year which will give subscribers instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows. Another key feature of Amazon is the Kindle Lending Library, which lets Amazon Prime members borrow a book for up to a month from over 5,000 books.