Amazon Sells 500,000 Kindles in 2008
Amazon's Kindle is certainly started a fire for consumers in 2008.
According to industry analysts, Amazon's Kindle eBook reader saw sales numbering around 500,000 in 2008. According to All Things Digital, Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that the popular device, what he calls the "iPod of the eBook world", saw the 500,000 mark in 2008 sales. That number will supposedly double to 1.27 million in 2009, and then skyrocket to roughly 3.5 million in 2010.
These predicted sales numbers would put the Kindle somewhat on par with the iPod during its first three years of sales in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The adoption rates peak at 132 percent for first year sales (500k for the Kindle, 378k for the iPod), and drop to 80 percent in year three sales (3.5 million for the Kindle, 4.4 million for the iPod).
On the money side of things, the Kindle generated about $153 million in revenue in 2008, which would represent about 0.8 percent of Amazons total revenue on the year. Mahaney predicts that number will jump to over $1.2 billion in 2010, and will account for approximately 4.4 percent of Amazons total revenue. The projected revenue is based on Kindle owners buying one eBook through Amazon every month. Chances are most Kindle users buy (or pirate) more than that.
While Mahaney seems optimistic on the Kindle, he has some sobering advice for Amazon. "The structural challenge facing Amazon is that approximately 50% of its revenue is generated from the sale of books, music, and videos–three product categories that are all in the process of being digitized," said Mahaney. "If Amazon can’t successfully jump the chasm from Internet-ordered/mailman-delivered media products to Internet-ordered/digitally-delivered media products, its financial fundamentals and its stock price will be significantly challenged.” The Kindle is certainly a step in this direction, as is the company's deal with Vizio.
The Citigroup analyst also has some predictions on the next Kindle, which many believe will be revealed next week during an Amazon presser in NYC. Mahaney speculates that the next iteration of the device will be longer, thinner, have an enhanced design (less accidental button pushing), and will hit the $300 mark (the current price is $359). Furthermore, he says the Kindle 2.0 will lack a color screen and touch capability.
No book ever stuck itself closed.
No book ever came with a coin slot to keep on reading it.
I understand e-paper, might even be kinda useful in unconventional settings, but this Kindle e-book concept creeps me out, seriously. And I love Amazon, I'm a very loyal Amazon shopper, yet I won't get anywhere near this 'thing'.
How many freaking books can I buy for $300??
You can carry around 200 books in a Kindle. No I don't read 200 books at one, but I am reading three right now (and one is a 3600 page trilogy). Books are almost always cheaper than DTB (Dead Tree Books). So over time, you will save money. All the classics are free and available from sources outside of Amazon!
Clearly none of you have ever tried to read on a Kindle, and until you do, you are speaking from ignorance. The screen is sharper than any computer screen. No eye strain. And no you don't need to feed a meter to read your books. And if you wanted to read nothing but free books, you could do that without another dime ever going to Amazon.
Yes, what many people are missing is that a netbook relies on a backlit LCD screen, which will cause eye strain. eBook readers instead use ePaper, which does NOT need a backlight, as its appearance mimics real paper, at a sharpness level rivaling laser printers and done on a hexagonal grid, resulting in strain-free reading.
This also means that they require utterly no power to keep displaying the same page, only to change the displayed page, as the frame display is effectively non-volatile. Hence, should the reader lose power while you were reading, the screen would NOT go blank; it'd just sit there with the current page still displayed. Perhaps better yet, while a netbook might keep you powered for 2-6 hours max depending on your eye fatigue and netbook model, the e-books would last you hundreds or thousands of hours, and have a battery life more of measured in pages read rather than hours displayed.
There is an idiot born every day. At least 500,000.