Whilst it seems certain that the release of Apple’s iPad has had an impact upon sales of Amazon’s Kindle reader, the internet retail giant doesn’t appear to be unduly worried. In the wake of further price reductions and an upgrade, the 6″ version of the Kindle has sold out. Amazon currently estimate that there will be a four to five week hiatus before any new readers are shipped out. The larger Kindle DX version is currently still available.
The newest Kindle version sees the physical size of the unit shrink by 21% (whilst still maintaining the same display size), a weight reduction of 15% and faster page turns. Thanks to the fact that the memory has been doubled, you can now carry a small library of 3,500 Kindle books with you wherever you go. A battery life of up to one month (with the Wi-Fi off) and a new, high contrast display means that the Kindle is the perfect device for reading – at home or on the road.
Customers can now pick either graphite or white body colors and the standard unit comes with both Wi-Fi and free 3G connectivity. A cheaper Wi-Fi only reader is now included as an option for users who don’t anticipate the need for a 3G connection.
Starting in the UK, Amazon will be marketing the Kindle directly from some of its international sites. UK customers can now order their Kindle direct from Amazon UK rather than having it shipped from the USA. A dedicated UK Kindle book store will be launched, and no doubt similar arrangements can be anticipated for Germany and France at some point in future.
Amazon recently announced that Kindle books were outselling hard cover editions on their US web store . During July of 2010, Amazon sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 traditional hardback editions. They seem very confident that the future of reading is going to be digital – and these figures do seem to suggest that this is probable. E-book readers are, commercially at least, a relatively new innovation. The reading public – based upon these figures – seems to have become accustomed to e-book readers very rapidly.
Recently, e-book reader prices have reduced significantly. The latest Kindle with 3G and Wi-Fi has a price of $ 189, which is significantly less than the $ 359 February 2009 launch price of the Kindle 2.0. The Wi-Fi only reader, priced at just $ 139, is getting into mp3 player territory. These prices may, or may not, have been driven down by the launch of the Apple iPad – but the hardware price was always going to fall, and it may yet have some way to go.
Whilst the cost of e-book reader hardware has been falling, the cost of the e-books themselves seems to have been edging upwards. This means that Amazon enjoys a significant advantage compared with many of its competitors, who are chiefly interested in making and selling hardware. Amazon’s huge library of Kindle books (currently over 630,000 titles) is a tremendous asset for them – as is the fact that they have made so many Kindle “apps” available which allow Kindle books to be read on a variety of other devices such as the PC, the Mac, the iPad, the iPhone, the Blackberry and any device running Android. As the emerging e-book market matures and more emphasis is placed on e-books rather than the hardware to read them on, Amazon look very well placed to be the dominant player in the new digital publishing world.
