Now that we’ve got this iPhone-not-5 business out of the way, eyeballs are back on Amazon’s Kindle Fire over a leaked sales report. Here’s the report’s short version: People are preordering the thing like mad.
Take with a pinch or two of sodium—the report comes from a tech blog dubbed Cult of Android, after all—but word is would-be Kindle Fire owners are snatching up Amazon’s Android-based tablet to the tune of 2,000 units an hour on average, which adds up to slightly less than 50,000 a day.
(MORE: Could Amazon’s Kindle Fire Dethrone Apple’s iPad?)
The blog’s trumpeting several screen grabs from "a verified source" within Amazon, grabs that depict the company’s "internal inventory management system," called Alaska, or "Availability Lookup and Sku Aggregator."
According to the charts in the grabs, the Kindle Fire’s already pre-sold a quarter of a million tablets. Do the math—the Kindle Fire ships in roughly six weeks—and assuming demand continues at that rate, you come up with a number approaching 2.5 million preorders by the time the Fire goes on sale, November 15.
(LIST: Tablets: ‘Why Should Somebody Buy This Instead of an iPad?’)
Could we be looking at an iPad 2 sales record upset? Perhaps. Estimates are the iPad 2 sold between 2.4 and 2.6 million units during its first month (after clearing 1 million during its opening weekend). If Kindle Fire pre-sales continue at the 50,000-a-day rate, right up to November 15, Amazon would easily surpass the estimated iPad 2 opening weekend sales figure during the Fire’s first 24 to 48 hour gallop out the door.
But, and we’re talking a huge but here, that assumes the chart above is accurate and representative, and that the current blistering preorder rate is sustainable through mid-November.
MORE: Amazon Unveils $199 ‘Kindle Fire’ Android Tablet, $99 ‘Kindle Touch’
Matt Peckham is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @mattpeckham or on Facebook. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.