Amazon’s Kindle Reader Takes E-Books Mainstream
Amazon has a very strong link with books and reading, so it’s no big surprise that the Kindle reader has turned out to be such a perfect fit for the Amazon business model. During 2009 e-book readers really went mainstream, and a great deal of the credit for that must go to the Amazon Kindle. Both the Kindle 2 and the larger DX model generated a huge amount of publicity and really helped to bring e-books into the mainstream consumer marketplace.
Currently, the Kindle is Amazon’s number one selling product. It has a 60% share of the American e-book reader market – Sony is in second place with a 35% share. Both the Kindle 2 and DX model are now on sale in over 100 countries worldwide. There are a lot of new e-book readers, from a variety of different manufacturers, on the market now. However, there is little doubt that the Amazon Kindle is the market leader.
In a way, it’s a compliment to Amazon that every new reader which shows any promise whatsoever is immediately christened the “Kindle killer”. Amazon has responded to the increased competition level by reducing the price of the Kindle 2 by $100 to $259. At the moment, the price of the DX model is unchanged, but the recent introduction of the Apple iPad may see Amazon revising this price also in the near future.
As well as developing the Kindle hardware and expanding into new markets, the choice of Kindle books available on the Amazon website continues to grow. At the moment there are more than 420,000 books to choose from, and this number is growing at an average rate of 500 titles every day.
Unlike their competition, who seem to be very focused on developing e-book reader hardware, Amazon and advancing on a broad front. They are adjusting prices, issuing firmware updates for the existing Kindle, increasing the size of their market and constantly making further additions to the range of Kindle books available. In general, they are capitalising on their market leadership position and making the most of their strong link with books.
It will be interesting to see what new developments are included when Amazon decide to release the next upgrade of the Kindle reader. This will give a very strong indication of the way that the e-book reader market is likely to develop in future. Different industry watchers are predicting various dates for the next Kindle update. Given that the Kindle 2 is now over a year old it is almost certain that this will take place in 2010. Some time during the third quarter of the year seems to be the most widely anticipated timeslot at the moment.
Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself – and don’t forget to get a Kindle cover to protect your reader against minor bumos and scrapes.
