Amazon Kindle Fire Explodes: 250,000 Pre-Orders in 5 Days

Since Jeff Bezos announced Amazon's first-ever tablet last Wednesday, the company has taken in more than 250,000 orders for Kindle Fires.

A blog report provides screenshots of Amazon's internal inventory, which reveals that Amazon's Kindle Fires have been pre-ordered at an average rate of 50,000 units per day. If Amazon can keep this up, the company will register more than 2.5 million pre-orders for the Kindle Fire by the time it's released on Nov. 15, which would break all other tablets' launch day sales records.

Apple sold 300,000 iPads, pre-orders included, on its first day of sales in the U.S. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion reports shipping 490,000 in its entire first quarter.

The Kindle Fire will feature Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities, run on an Android OS, feature a brand-new Cloud-based browser called Amazon Silk, but it will not have a camera or a microphone. Easily the greatest selling point of the Kindle Fire is the price point. At $199, Amazon's tablet is $300 cheaper than Apple's cheapest available iPad 2.

At the moment, Amazon is Apple's biggest threat, mostly in part to the affordability of its tablet and e-readers. Amazon will also sell a Kindle with a multi-touch interface called the Kindle Touch for $99, a souped-up Kindle Touch 3G for $149 and reduced the price of its original Kindle offering to $79.

Apple disappointed eager fans by delivering an iPhone 4S instead of an iPhone 5, which was never confirmed or denied by Apple but was widely expected by analysts and news outlets. Disgruntled consumers may switch over to Amazon out of spite, but this is unlikely. iDevice users are die-hard Apple users, and no single product announcement will make or break that.

It's a good thing that Amazon is pre-selling so many Kindle Fires. Each tablet reportedly costs $210 to build, so the company is taking a big risk with such a low price tag. Seattle-based Amazon hopes to benefit from sales of entertainment and other services from the handheld platform.

The Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G will be released on Nov. 21, five days after Amazon releases the Kindle Fire on Nov. 15. The original lightweight Kindle is currently available.