Somehow I doubt these metrics.

You'd expect to see more sales of the chipsets for them if it was the true picture.

I bet Bezos is "Over the moon!" about this!

Anecdotal evidence: I saw a crapload of them in the Seattle and San Jose airports this weekend.

I don't know. I think that iPad (or other multi-format compatible devices) only helps the Kindle format. Since buying an iPad, I've found that I'm much more likely to find a title of interest in the Kindle store than in the iBookstore.

I have to agree with Josh. The smartest thing Amazon has done with the Kindle is make it mostly platform agnostic. I can read the books on my Android phone, my wife can read them on her iPhone. We can read them on a windows laptop, or a mac. If we ever buy a tablet, we'll be able to read them there too. I can do all this without ever buying a Kindle device.

In Seattle and San Jose airports I saw only one iPad, which some six year old was playing a very loud pingy game on.

Doesn't this assume Bezos is smart enough to not try lying whenever he thinks he can get away with it?

When has that ever been the case?
derrr?

I'd believe this, in no small part because I don't really know anyone among my early-30s yuppie friends who buys hardcover books. These sales aren't replacing hardcover book sales.

I agree that they will lose market share, but I think that's because the market is encompassing more people. I still think the Kindle will remain the frontrunner for people who read 1+ books a week, while iPad will attract casual readers. It will help Kindle loyalty tremendously that they've been rolling out software improvements - the highlight and share feature is promising, the collections are LONG overdue.. I think they will do well as long as they don't try to go the color LCD "does everything but none of it as well as a dedicated device" approach that tablets take; if what I want is something that does everything an iPad does, I'm just gong to buy an iPad. And they ought to be furiously advertising with people reading on the beach, which with the addition of a ziplock bag makes Kindle stand out from both iPad AND paper.

I usually buy Kindle books on my iPad. The decision to be platform agnostic was a brilliant one.

There could be a few things wonky with these statistics. For example:

How do sales of hardcovers compared with Kindle sales of the same title?

Has the number of hardcover titles declined as the number of Kindle titles has risen?

Have hardcovers ever been a big seller on Amazon, compared with brick and mortar sales?

This might not be as impressive of a statistic as it seems.