While the Fire Phone flamed out, Amazon's Fire TV Stick is being smothered by consumer love and only the first batch of the streaming dongles preordered will make it in time to cozy up with Christmas trees.
The Fire TV Stick is Amazon's fastest-selling device ever, said Dave Limp, senior VP, Amazon Devices.
While those who made their minds up early and pulled the trigger on the $39 device will receive it before Dec. 25, the e-commerce company won't be ready to fulfill new orders until Jan. 15, 2015.
"We built a ton of these, but customer demand still outpaced our supply," says Limp. "We're excited by the overwhelming customer response and the team is working hard to build more as quickly as possible."
Like other streaming sticks, the Fire TV Stick attaches to the HDMI port on TV to turn standard HDTVs into smart TVs. Amazon's streaming stick comes along with a remote control, but users can install the free Fire TV app on their Android device to navigate the Fire TV's interface from a smartphone or tablet -- the Fire TV app is also heading to iOS.
Coming in at a lower price point than Roku's Streaming Stick and offering more media than Google's Chromecast, Amazon primed, or poised, the Fire TV Stick for success by compacting its Fire TV set-top-box into a trendier dongle. To make the Fire TV Stick even more enticing, Amazon sliced the product's price in half for Amazon Prime members for a short period of time.
While Google recently expanded the Chromecast's games library, the Fire TV Stick still enjoys more than twice as many titles. Streaming hardware veteran Roku once promised to build a formidable collection of casual games for its products, but its gaming library is now dwarfed by Amazon's selection.
While just about all streaming sticks offer support for the likes of Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, the Fire TV Stick enjoys additional media from Amazon Instant Video -- in the Chromecast's favor, Google's Play library is starting to pick up steam. Because Amazon's streaming video service is included with a Prime membership, the Fire TV Stick one-time price of $19 may have tipped the scales for many users who had been comparing rival products.
