If Kindle Is Selling So Well, How About Giving Us Some Sales Data?

November isn’t quite over, but Amazon is already calling it the “best sales month ever” for its Kindle e-reader. “Kindle is…flying off the shelves faster than any other product Amazon sells,” the retailer said in a celebratory press release this morning. “[It's] the most wished for, the most gifted, and the number one bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon.”

Impressive. So how many Kindles did Amazon (AMZN) sell during this “best sales month ever”? Well, that’s tough to say since the company didn’t provide any sales figures to support its claim.

Fact is, Amazon has never released Kindle sales data. As CEO Jeff Bezos said during the company’s last earnings call, “I’m not sure we will ever reveal all the numbers. Our point of view is that there is a competitive advantage to keeping the numbers close.”

Point taken. That said, it’s tough to take these “Holy Crap! Look at All The Kindles We Sold!” pronouncements seriously without hard numbers. Quantitative claims typically carry a lot more weight when they’re supported by quantitative specifics.