Kindle's '08 sales estimate double expected to 380K units, says Citigroup—plus a Washington Post columnist's K fears

Didn’t I say that both the Kindle and iPhone would do fine as e-book readers in the marketplace?

Now Citigroup is predicting that unit sales will be 380,000 in ’08 rather than the 190,000 it expected earlier.

"Although AMZN has not disclosed Kindle sales, our collection of datapoints leads us to double our ’08 unit assumption from 190,000 to 380,000," StreetInsider.com quotes Citigroup. "In its first year (2002), that’s exactly how many iPods were sold. Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world."

For Kindle-related revenue in 2010, the Citi estimate is $1B instead of the previous $400-$700 million.

Top holiday gift gadget?

As Citi sees it, the Kindle could be a top holiday gift gadget. Very possibly, at least among the affluent.

The positive, if you want to look at it this way, is that higher gas prices might help e-books, for which you can shop virtually and not worry about shipping costs. And the negative? The economy, stupid.

One sign that the Kindle is catching on

Here’s one more sign the Kindle is catching on. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has just written on the Kindle as a bookstore threat. I myself doubt that bookstores are going to vanish tomorrow. I hope not! But long term, yes, stores will need to adapt or perish—I like the community approach that Politics & Prose is using. Meanwhile Cohen has bought himself a Kindle.

The TeleRead angle: I hope Cohen and others will recognize the real battle. It isn’t so much over physical books vs. virtual books. Rather it is over the survival of long text narratives in the marketplace. TeleRead, anyone? See a Washington Post op-ed that I did some years ago.