I have always been an avid reader of eBooks, ever since I first came across the concept, around 4 years back. They provide quiet an easy way to carry all your favourite books on your smartphone which you can read any time on the train, in the car, on a ferry, in your office lunch time, waiting on a date et al.
According to Ian Freed, Amazon's VP for Kindle:
1. The number of eBooks sold in first quarter of 2009 vs the number of eBooks sold in Q1-2010 has tripled.
2. Since the price of the device dropped to $189, the growth rate has tripled year over year.
3. 80% of Kindle books are being sold to Kindle users, using the software of their iPhone, any other smart phone, iPads, Mac or a PC.
4. After collecting data on books for last 15 years, Amazon has found that most of the consumers are shifting for eBooks which are priced at $9.99 or less.
5. Amazon had over 630,000 books which are not public domain titles and out of this, over 510,000 are sold for $9.99 or less. Out of The New York Times bestsellers, 80 of them are $9.99 or less.
6. A lot of authors didn't think of self publishing before the Kindle platform became so large. Now with the 70% royalty option, Amazon is sending a lot of these royalty cheques to the self publishing writers.
7. The American Association of Publishers say that eBook market is growing over 200% year on year and even faster growth in the Amazon's portfolio says for itself about the segment share.
So the market has a lot to offer and it seems as a reader and consumer, I am bound to get even better eBook deals in future.
CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement:
ReplyDelete"Millions of people now own Kindles. And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books - free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It's been an exciting 27 months."
On a conference call, Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak said:
"We think we are focused on the customer, and I think when you look at Kindle, that's a - certainly a good example of that. We think we built a nice - very nice purpose book - purpose device, and that's - excuse me, that's purpose built for reading. And we believe that readers deserve to have a dedicated device with great selection at great prices."