Visitors to Amazon.com's home page this holiday season have been greeted with a massive ad for the Kindle, the company's electronic book reading device. The ad, which is hard to miss, declares that the Kindle is the "#1 bestselling, #1 Most-Wished for, #1 Most Gifted Product on Amazon." That placement alone is probably driving huge sales volumes.

Historically, Amazon has kept Kindle sales as a closely guarded secret. But Bloomberg News reports today -- citing people familiar with Amazon's sales projections -- that the company will sell eight million Kindles this year. Analysts had predicted that Amazon would sell about five million Kindles in 2010, more than double last year's figure of 2.4 million, according to Bloomberg.

That's an amazing achievement, especially given that Amazon has faced intense competition in the past year from Apple's iPad. In fact, msnbc.com's Wilson Rothman notes that the eight million number would put the Kindle in the same ballpark as the iPad. (Apple released the iPad in April, and as of September had sold more than seven million of the devices).

Of course, the Kindle is far cheaper than the iPad with the lowest cost model costing $139. That's a price point that certainly is resonating with consumers, especially during the holiday period.