The Kindle E-Book Reader – The Perfect Product For Amazon
Considering the very strong link that Amazon have with books and reading it’s no surprise that the Amazon Kindle reader has proved itself to be a very good fit for Amazon’s business model. During 2009, the market for e-book readers really took off. Much of the credit for that must be given to the Amazon Kindle, both the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX, which attracted a lot of publicity and did a great deal of work to bring e-book readers to the public’s attention.
Currently, the Kindle is Amazon’s number one selling product. It enjoys a 60% share of the US e-book reader market – Sony takes second place with 35%. Both the Kindle models are now on sale in more than 100 countries around the world. There is a wide choice of new e-book readers on the market, from a number of different manufacturers, right now. Nevertheless, the Kindle still retains the market leader position.
The fact that any new e-book reader that shows any promise is immediately dubbed the “Kindle killer” only serves to underline the current dominance of Amazon’s Kindle reader. Amazon’s response to the increased level of competition has been to reduce the price of the Kindle 2 from $359 to $259. The price of the DX model is currently and changed, but the recent launch of the Apple iPad may mean that Amazon need to consider reviewing this price in the near future also.
As well as developing the Kindle hardware and expanding into new markets, the choice of Kindle books available on the Amazon website continues to grow. Currently, there are over 420,000 Kindle books to choose from – an average of 500 new titles are added every day.
Unlike the competition, who seem to be concentrating on development of the hardware, Amazon are making advances in a number of different areas. They are modifying prices, producing firmware updates for the current Kindle, growing the size of their available market and constantly adding to the selection of Kindle books available. In general, the capitalising on their market leadership position and making the most of their strong link with books.
It will be interesting to see what new developments are included when Amazon decide to release the next upgrade of the Kindle reader. This will provide a very clear indication of the way in which the e-book reader market is likely to develop in the near future. Different industry watchers are predicting various dates for the next Kindle update. Given that the Kindle 2 is now over a year old it is almost certain that this will take place in 2010. The third quarter of the year is the most widely forecast launch time according to many business insiders.
