Amazon must be absolutely delighted 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 rapidly achieved the position of Amazon’s top selling product – even before the worldwide launch of the Kindle 2.0 in October.
In the course of the 2009 festive season, the Kindle became Amazon’s “most gifted” product ever and, on Christmas day 2009, more Kindle books were sold than traditional paperbacks and hardbacks combined. In all probability that would have been due to all those lucky people who had woken up to find a Kindle in their stocking on Christmas morning. It seems reasonable to suppose that, having unwrapped their gift and got the Kindle out of the box, proud new Kindle owners would wish to test their new toy. In all probability that would have involved connecting to the Amazon website and downloading a Kindle book or two.
Even so, for Kindle books to outsell traditional paper books is still a significant milestone. If some feel that the method of achieving this was a little artificial then maybe that simply emphasises Amazon’s business model.
Of course Amazon’s competition have been closely monitoring their success and taking steps to ensure that they secure 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 giants. Apple, Sony, Samsung and Microsoft are just a few of the manufacturers who will be taking on 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generation readers will incorporate features which will make the Kindle, at least in its present format,appear somewhat out of date. Touch screen controls, color displays and an industry standard e-book format which will permitusers to lend e-books to family and friends or even to borrow books from participating digital libraries are just a few of the features which users can expect in the near future.
One thing’s for sure, Amazon will not stand and watch whilst their competitors muscle in on the market which Amazon has been so instrumental in developing. The present iteration of the 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 is probably already working on their next generation Kindle (the Kindle 4?) and, based upon the level of innovation and drive they have displayed so far, Amazon will be anticipating further success in 2010. Kindle users can look forward to an updated, enhanced Kindle packed with new features – probably in the first half of 2010. In the meantime expect Amazon to continue to increase the selection of Kindle books available on its Kindle store – so users will have the ideal marriage of hardware and software.