Amazon, using their Kindle reader family as a vehicle, has been a major player in the development of both the e-book reader and e-book market. The first Kindle was released in November of 2007. In February of 2009, the updated and enhanced Kindle 2.0 hit the market, quickly followed by the large format Kindle DX in the summer of the same year.
The Kindle readers dominated the market with a 60% share of all American e-book reader sales. Sony’s PRS reader – which was actually available in 2006, some time before the Kindle – followed in second place with a 35% market share. Other companies quickly saw the huge potential of the rapidly developing e-book reader market and either launched or updated their own readers in order to get a share of the available sales.
Manufacturers like Bookeen, Plastic Logic, Sony and Barnes and Noble worked hard to get their share of the rapidly developing market, but the dominance of the Kindle seemed pretty well established, if not unassailable. It was only when Apple launched their iPad that the Kindle faced any credible competition – despite the fact that the two devices were very different and, you would think, aimed at different target markets.
Nevertheless, since the release of the iPad, e-book reader prices have pretty much gone into free fall. The Kindle 2.0, which retailed for $ 359 at its February 2009 launch is now priced at just $ 189. The Kindle DX, which has just had a mini makeover and now sports a new higher contrast screen, has had its price slashed from $ 489 to $ 379. Still a pricey piece of kit, but a lot cheaper than before and also way cheaper than even the entry level iPad (which also has a monthly connection fee associated with it). The price of the Barnes and Noble Nook reader has also dropped to just $ 199.
Whilst the price of e-book readers may be falling, the same cannot be said about the price of the e-books which these devices are used to read. Again, Apple had a hand in this. Apple had, in advance of the launch of the iPad, set up their own book store and negotiated a pricing deal with the major publishing houses which basically allowed them to fix the price of their e-book editions at whatever level they wished. The only rider being that they could not offer the same e-book version at a lower price on any other platform. This effectively put paid to Amazon’s policy of pricing e-books at $ 9.99 or lower and was very popular amongst the publishing companies.
Amazon had to back down from this – but it’s not necessarily a bad thing for them, or Barnes and Noble for that matter. Amazon has always appeared to be more interested in selling books – and e-books – rather than hardware. That’s the only possible explanation for the fact that they have made it possible to read Kindle books on so many different devices. At the moment, you can read Kindle books on the PC, the Mac, your Blackberry, the iPod Touch, the iPad and any mobile device running Android. So companies like Barnes and Noble, Amazon and now Apple, who have a stake in the future sale of e-books over the life of a reader, can afford to sell the hardware cheaper and profit over the life of the device.
Companies which sell books and hardware may have a distinct advantage over hardware manufacturers in the near future. Looking at the huge number of different devices (outlets) that Kindle books can be read on, it seems likely that Amazon are going to have a big say in the future development of digital publishing going forward.
Learn more about the Amazon Kindle reader for yourself and view the huge range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Tags: computers, ebook readers, ebooks, electrical items, ereaders, gadgets, personal electronics, technology, Uncategorized
