Amazon Ups Orders From Kindle Fire Suppliers To 5 Million Units

Emboldened by solid pre-order numbers for their new Kindle Fire tablet, Amazon has bumped its order numbers from manufacturers yet again, this time to a round five million units by year’s end. Presumably they are looking to fulfill as many orders as possible before the all-important holiday rush.

The change isn’t anything like an order of magnitude, as even early reports had Amazon ordering “millions” of screens, and leaked sales estimates were for four million units sold before 2011 ends. Considering the relative unpopularity of even the highest-profile Android tablets preceding it, these numbers appeared optimistic at first; now they appear to have been conservative.

It’s a drop in the bucket compared with iPad sales, but the Amazon board is probably breathing a collective sigh of relief, having spent a huge sum of money developing the device. The Fire will likely be the second-place tablet for some time at this rate, which, when first place belongs to one of the best-selling gadgets of all time, isn’t a bad place to be.

The tablet ships on the 15th (next Tuesday), and is of course still available for pre-order. We’ll have a full review up after we get our hands on a device.