Why's Amazon STILL hiding its Kindle sales numbers from stockholders? Motley Fool, Wall Street Journal articles raise pesky questions

Never mind curious bloggers and news media folks. Real, live shareholders want to know how many Kindle gizmos and K books Amazon has sold. Wouldn’t the SEC prefer disclosure of important data that could affect this public corporation’s future? No, I’m not saying Jeff Bezos has broken the law. But solid data would help, especially since some Amazon insiders would apparently be willing to bet the farm on the Kindle.

Among the pesky souls asking for the numbers—to go beyond just-relaased and rather positive general financial results—is Rick Aristotle Munariz of The Motley Fool financial site. He isn’t an Amazon shareholder but undoubtedly is speaking for many of them. An excerpt: “Amazon won’t even reveal how many Kindles the company has sold, even though the supply problems for its multifaceted e-book reader appear to be licked now that the device is readily available…”

“Can’t wait for the day…”

“I can’t wait for the day,” he goes on, “when Amazon opens up and tells us exactly how many digital movies, songs, and books it’s selling through Unbox, MP3 Downloads, and Kindle, respectively.

“Amazon has no problem declaring the breadth of its digitally available titles, like 115,000 Kindle e-books, but where are the visible numbers on the invisible products? This is where fat margins are waiting to be had. Yes, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) fans know that the content creators take a huge chunk of the revenue, but the merits of inventory-free stocking and the perpetual cheapening of bandwidth costs are too juicy to ignore.

“Third-party data is already telling us that Amazon is moving a tenth of the music that Apple’s iTunes is selling. Why don’t we hear it from Amazon itself?

“The lack of Kindle data is perhaps the most troubling, because this is where Amazon is riding on the hardware side, too. Owners and potential buyers are flying blind here. Is this a dud? Is this a hit? Is an updated Kindle on the way to clear up the original model’s shortcomings? Is a price cut looming? It may be in Amazon’s best interest to keep mum on those last two points until it’s ready to take action, but I can’t be the only one waiting on the sidelines to see the Kindle either evolve or earn its iPhone price tag.”

No, this isn’t the first time The Fool has wondered about The Numbers. I suspect that the Kindle stats won’t be that bad in the end as more more Kindles become available, but nothing beats actually having them.

Meanwhile check out Slow Slog for Amazon’s digital media, in the Wall Street Journal (password-protected). Except:

“In other markets such as short-form literature and electronic-book reading, Amazon may be ahead of people used to paper books. ‘They’re going to face the consumer inertia,’ says Mike McGuire, an analyst at market research firm Gartner.

“Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said that the company needs to offer digital goods so that it will be ready for the time when consumers want them…

“Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman, says the company now considers the Kindle, the music-download store, and Unbox to be the primary ingredients in its digital-media push because they are the only initiatives that sell goods in digital form. Mr. Herdener says that it’s still early for the music store and the Kindle, which were both introduced late last year, but that the company is ‘very happy’ with all three initiatives….

“Analysis by outsiders is difficult because Amazon has thus far disclosed few numbers for its digital-media products. Consider the Kindle…”

It looks as if, in our curiosity, the Fool and I have company!