E-book readers and e-books have been hot topics for some time now. In 2009, the e-book reader market really took off, and one of the major influences in this was the launch of Amazon’s Kindle.0 in February of that year. Amazon followed up with the release of their Kindle DX large display model in the summer of 2009 and, in the last six months of the year, it seemed as if electronics manufacturers were getting in line to launch e-book readers of their own in order to secure a share of the new market. It’s a clear indication of just how influential Amazon were – and remain – to the development of the market that almost every new reader announced was instantly christened the “Kindle Killer”. The Kindle reader was, undoubtedly, the industry standard that required to be matched and then beaten.
However, there was very little evidence of a reader which was going to knock the Kindle off its throne. It wasn’t until the launch of the Apple iPad – a very different device – that there was any serious threat to the Kindle’s dominance. Even then, the death of the Kindle as a result of consumers turning to the iPad just doesn’t seem to have materialised. Very rapidly following the release of the newly upgraded third generation Kindle in August 2010, Amazon had sold out of the devices and prospective customers were faced with a wait of several weeks before their new readers could be shipped.
There can’t be much doubt that the Kindle’s high sales figures can, to some extent, be explained by the fact that the latest upgrades were also accompanied by a price reduction. Amazon introduced a new Wi-Fi only Kindle for just $ 139 for customers who didn’t have any need for 3G connectivity. If you remember that the Kindle 2.0 launch price was $ 359 in February of 2009, that’s a hefty price reduction. It moves the Kindle – and e-book readers in general – much closer to the sub $ 100 impulse buying zone for personal electronic devices. It’s debatable whether or not the iPad’s release prompted this. The price reduction would have happened anyway, but there is still a lot of scope for further price cuts – and probably in the not too distant future.
Amazon and Apple may be enjoying a good deal of success, but the same cannot be said for other e-book reader manufacturers. Several planned e-book readers have either been postponed or cancelled all together. Plastic Logic’s Que reader is pretty much dead. The Dutch company Irex, an apparently well established business, went bankrupt after US sales of their Irex reader failed to meet expectations. The Skiff reader, from Sprint and Hearst has been shelved.
Are we heading towards a polarised market with Amazon dominating the low cost “pure” e-book reader sector and Apple cleaning up in the pricier tablet computer that’s also used as an e-book reader market? There is a massive difference in the retail prices of the Kindle and even the entry level iPad. Is there room between the two devices, in terms of both price and specification levels, for other players to enter the market?
Recently Amazon confirmed that sales of Kindle books are outstripping the sales of hardback editions. It seems reasonable to assume that they will begin to catch up with paperback sales in the not too distant future. It looks like e-books may well be the future of reading, but just what type of device will you choose to read them on?