Amazon is expected to sell more than 380,000 of its Kindle e-readers by the end of 2008, Citigroup analysts have predicted, The (UK) Register reported Tuesday.

Analyst Mark Mahaney compared Kindle sales to those of the iPod in its first year on the market. Although the Kindle is only sold in the United States, as it needs the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network to operate its whispernet connection, sales numbers for the year are impressive nonetheless, Mahaney said.

By 2010, Mahaney predicts the Kindle will account for US$1 billion each year to booksellers, which is 4 percent of the total revenue, according to The Register.

Kindle editions are already offered by newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times in the United States, as well as Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine, China's Shanghai Daily and France's Le Monde.