Leather-bound books and rich mahogany shelves may soon be as endangered as the 70's playboy who used them to impress women.
Today, Amazon announced that sales of books for its popular Kindle reading device are far outpacing sales of hardcover books. The online retailer said that it's sold 143 Kindle e-books for every 100 hardcover books over the past three month. In the last four weeks, that figure has jumped to 180 e-books per every 100 hardcovers.
"Even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format," says Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. "[It's] astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months."
These numbers come at a good time for Amazon, whose Kindle is facing increased competition from other e-readers and widening belief that the iPad and other tablets could end its market control. Last week, analysts at Credit Suisse estimated that Amazon's share of e-book sales would fall from 90% to 35% in the next five years.
For now, however, it seems the Kindle is keeping up with its rivals. E-book sales have leaped more than 207% according to a report by the Association of American Publishers, but Amazon said today it has exceeded that growth rate, having tripled the Kindle's book sales in the first half of 2010.
Amazon's e-book market success is aided by a recent price drop of the Kindle, from $259 to $189, which Bezos said has helped spur significant sales for the device. Vast, important library and the impression that you're incredibly well-read sold separately.
COMMENTARY: Several experts have been predicting the demise of the regular hardbook's as more books are being digitized and available online through Amazon.com, Google, Barnes & Noble and Border's Books. The majority of books being read today are regular hardbook's, and I believe that this trend will continue because there is just something about a regular book that cannot be matched by a digitized version:
- Consumer's have an emotional attachment to a regular book. It's a physical object, you can feel it, leaf through the pages, it smells good.
- Tests show that reader's can read a regular book faster than an eBook.
- Reading speeds are 30% lower with eBooks than regular books.
- You can usually buy used books.
Courtesy of an article dated July 19, 2010 appearing in Fast Company
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