Kindle Stock Shortage Scuppers Holiday Gift Plans [Update: Stock Available]

Bad news if you were planning on picking up a Kindle as a gift this holiday season: Amazon US is currently out of stock of both the WiFi-only and WiFi/3G versions of its ereader. Estimated shipping times are now listed as 7-9 weeks, missing the all-important holiday period.

The shortage affects not only US Kindle availability but those international countries orders to which are shipped from US stock, such as Canada, Germany and France. UK WiFi and WiFi/3G models are listed as in stock, but are limited to three devices per customer.

Amazon launched their Kindle ebook gift program on Friday, allowing customers to buy ebooks for friends and family with nothing more than their email address. Titles can then be read either on a hardware Kindle or using one of Amazon's free software Kindle apps.

Update: Amazon has been in touch to let us know that they still have US and UK Kindle stock which is available in time for December 24 shipping. Shop on, merry readers!

[via Lesen]