Kindle Is Amazon’s ‘Most Gifted’ Product Ever After Xmas
Amazon must be over the moon with the sales results for its Kindle reader family duringin 2009. February saw the launch of the Kindle 2.0 and the DX followed just a little later in June. The Kindle very quickly achieved the position of Amazon’s number one selling product – even before the global launch of the Kindle 2.0 in October.
During the 2009 festive season, the Kindle became Amazon’s “most gifted” product ever and, on Christmas day 2009, Amazon sold more Kindle books than they did traditional printed volumes. In all probability that would have been due to all those lucky people who had found a Kindle under the tree on Christmas morning. No doubt, having unwrapped their gift and taken the Kindle out of the box, excited new Kindle owners would wish to try out their new toy. In all probability that would have involved connecting to the Amazon Kindle store and downloading one or two Kindle books.
Notwithstanding the above, for Kindle books to outsell traditional paper books is still a significant milestone. If some feel that the manner in which this was achieved was slightly artificial then perhaps that simply emphasises Amazon’s business model.
It goes without saying that Amazon’s competitors have been enviously eyeing their success and taking steps to ensure that they get a share of the new e-book reader market. The list of companies with e-book readers under development reads like a role call of consumer electronics household names. Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Samsung are just a sample of the manufacturers who will be going head to head with Amazon in 2010. And let’s not forget Barnes and Noble who have now released their own Nook e-book reader.
A lot of the next generation readers will incorporate features which will make the Kindle, in its current format at least,appear somewhat out of date. Touch screen controls, color displays and a new industry standard format for e-books which will allowusers to lend e-books to friends and family or even to take out books on loan from participating lending libraries are just a sample of the features which users can look forward to.
One thing’s certain, Amazon will not stand and watch whilst their competitors muscle in on the market which Amazon has done so much to develop. The current Kindles, as innovative as they were just a few short months ago, probably bear little resemblance to what e-book readers will be like in the (very) near future. Amazon will already be working on a new and enhanced Kindle (the Kindle 4?) and, considering the level of innovation and drive they have displayed to date, Amazon would be justified in being quietly confident of achieving more success in 2010. Kindle users can anticipate an updated, enhanced Kindle loaded with new features – probably in the first six months of 2010. We can also expect Amazon to keep expanding the selection of Kindle books available on its Kindle store – so users will have the ideal marriage of hardware and software.
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