Amazon’s Kindle Reader Continues To Sell In Volume
Now that the dust from the Christmas sales season has died down a little, it seems obvious that it has been another massively successful year for the Amazon Kindle ebook reader. The latest Kindle 3, which launched at the end of August 2010 has pretty much carried on where the Kindle 2.0 left off and held it’s position as Amazon’s top selling product.
During the 2010 Christmas sales period (Nov 14 to Dec 19) it was the top selling item on Amazon’s site. The 8GB iPod Touch was in second place.
Amazon, as usual, are not confirming any specific numbers. However, industry analysts have increased their prediction for 2011 Kindle sales from 5 million units to 8 million. Amazon also has an astonishing 90% share of the current ebook market.
It’s the combined effect of the Kindle reader and the huge selection of Kindle books which seems to give Amazon the edge. Amazon currently has more than 800,000 Kindle books on sale. In addition to those paid titles there are a further.8 million out of copyright titles – including classics by the likes of Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Virgil, Sir Arthur Conan doyle and Emily Bronte – which are all available as free downloads. You can economise and expand your library at the same time.
Amazon has, quite cleverly, made many free Kindle “apps” available. These allow users to read Kindle books on other portable electronic devices, so there’s no need to worry about losing your ebook library should you decide to change hardware. At the moment, Kindle apps exist for the Windows PC, the Mac computer, the Apple iPad, the iPhone, the Blackberry smart phone and any device running the Android operating system. Of course, each of these apps can also be considered to be an effective route to market for Kindle books.
Whatever you may think regarding the comparison between ebook readers and “real” books, it seems fairly clear that the Amazon Kindle is the top ebook reader by a long way. The fact that the only credible competition to the Kindle comes in the form of the Apple iPad, a high spec tablet computer which costs more than three times the price of the Kindle, speaks volumes.
Analysts are predicting that Amazon’s share of the ebook market will drop off in the coming years. However, considering that their current market share is 90%, that is scarcely a damning indictment. It’s hard to see how a level as high as that could be maintained in perpetuity. Predictions are for a roughly equal three way split, carved up between Amazon, Google and Apple, by around about 2015. Of course, based upon current growth, Amazon will have a smaller percentage of a very much larger market.
At the moment, there is little to suggest that the dominance of the Kindle is reducing. The potentially increased competition following the launch of the iPad doesn’t seem to have knocked Amazon of its stride. As the market develops and matures, some degree of rationalisation seems inevitable – but, for the time being at least, Amazon look set to capitalise on their dominant position and will most likely continue to be one of the key players in the ebook market for a long time to come.
Find out more about the Kindle 3 for yourself. It’s the future of reading – you can even play games on the Amazon Kindle – some games are even free!
