Amazon Had A Really Strong September
Amazon got a lot more visitors in September than it did last year, which points to a strong Q3. — According to Comscore, Amazon's pageviews in the U.S. were up 26% in September and 19% in Q3 versus a year ago, while unique U.S. visitors grew 25% to 79 million.
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon heads into its Q3 report with unusual momentum in the measurement data: Comscore puts September U.S. pageviews up 26% year-over-year and unique visitors up 25% to 79 million, a traffic base that arrives just as the company's hardware push crests. Reviewers have already panned the build quality of the new $79 Kindle while the Kindle Fire sits at number one on Amazon's own 'Most Wished For' electronics list, and commentary positions the Fire as the toughest challenger Apple's iPad has faced.
There is also a structural question hanging over the quarter: confirmed trademark filings for Kindle Fire and Amazon Silk point toward some form of corporate separation, though the reported plan to spin the Fire business out into a company called 'Seesaw' remains unconfirmed rumor rather than settled fact.
First-order effects
- Amazon's Q3 earnings, due within weeks, enter with a measurable traffic tailwind — 19% Q3 pageview growth gives analysts a third-party check on the retail line before management speaks.
- Third-party merchants selling on Amazon gain access to a U.S. audience 25% larger than a year ago, raising the value of placement on the platform heading into the holiday quarter.
Second-order effects
- Apple now confronts a tablet rival with a visible pre-launch demand signal — the Fire's top 'Most Wished For' ranking — forcing the iPad's pricing and positioning to be defended against a device Amazon appears willing to sell near cost to feed retail traffic.
- If the Kindle Fire separation talk hardens into a real spinoff, investors would get a separately valued consumer-hardware business whose economics no longer sit opaque inside Amazon's retail P&L.
Third-order effects
- The pattern here — Comscore traffic readings moving ahead of reported revenue — pushes investors toward treating independent web-measurement firms as leading indicators for e-commerce earnings, raising the stakes on measurement methodology.
- More structurally, Amazon's device-plus-storefront loop (cheap hardware driving store visits) points toward retail competition being decided by who owns the entry point to the customer rather than by product margins alone.
The trend: E-commerce is consolidating around companies that control both the device funnel and the storefront, with third-party traffic measurement becoming the market's early read on their earnings.