Amazon has had a great deal of success with its Kindle e-book reader family. It’s the number one selling product on Amazon’s website right now. The Kindle accounts for 60% of all American e-book reader sales and both the Kindle 2.0 and the large format Kindle DX are now on sale to customers in more than 100 countries worldwide – extending Amazon’s reach and growing their customer base enormously.

Right now,Sony are Amazon’s main competitor – trailing in second place but with a very respectable35% share of the American e-book reader market. However, there are a host of other companies who have watched the rapid growth of the e-book reader market and now want a piece of the action. This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) had a separate section for e-book readers for the first time ever. Over two dozen companies – some of them household names, others less well known – had e-book readers on display. This is a clear indication of the anticipated growth in this market segment.

However, what many of these e-book reader wannabes may be overlooking is the fact that the technical aspects of the hardware, as important as they are, are part of the big picture. The success which Amazon has enjoyed with the Kindle reader thus far has been due to diverse factors over and above its technical specification. Amazon is in an almost unique position which gives it several advantages which are important when it comes to marketing both e-book readers and the e-books to use on them.

, the largest book seller in the world – bar none. In the eyes of the buying public, it therefore enjoys a very strong association with books. It also has a a long history with consumer electronic devices – admittedly in the capacity of a merchant – but the association is there. Of course, the Kindle has now positioned Amazon as a manufacturer (although they subcontract the manufacture) in a big way.

The fact of the matter is that those manufacturers who imagine that they are going to steal Amazon’s crown just by producing a reader which has a few extra technical features than the Kindle, or is somehow “cooler”, are probably going to get an unpleasant surprise when the sales returns start rolling in. It will probably take another instantly recognisable household name who is both trusted and respected to make any significant impact on the scene now. Companies such as Microsoft or Apple would be prime contenders – and they both have their own readers, or devices which could be used to read e-books at least, under development. Sony now have a well established e-book reader pedigree, so they must consider themselves to be a contender.Barnes and Noble could also be a contender.

One thing’s for sure, no small electronics company is going to break Amazon’s stranglehold on the market. Partnerships, such as Plastic Logic’s agreement with Barnes and Noble, who will provide the books for the Que reader, might throw up a few surprises. All the same, unless there is a truly unforeseen development in the offing, it seems as if the Kindle reader really is set to become the literary world’s equivalent of the iPod.

Tags: amazon kindle, ebook readers, ebooks, electronics, Technology

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 8:35 am and is filed under Technology and Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.