Ebooks Now Outselling Physical Books on Amazon UK

Amazon has said ebooks are now outselling physical hard-copy books in the United Kingdom.

If you cast your mind back to May of 2011, you might remember Amazon announcing that it was officially selling more ebooks than paperback and hardback books in the United States. At the time, company said it was selling 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books sold via Amazon.com. Today, a little over a year later, the etail giant has announced a similar milestone for the UK market. What's more, Amazon UK hit the milestone in roughly half the time it took Amazon US.

"We hit this milestone in the US less than four years after introducing Kindle, so to reach this landmark after just two years in the UK is remarkable and shows how quickly UK readers are embracing Kindle," said Jorrit Van der Meulen, vice president, Kindle EU. "As a result of the success of Kindle, we're selling more books than ever before on behalf of authors and publishers. And thanks to Kindle Direct Publishing, thousands of self-published authors have also been given an outlet to share their work with the millions of Kindle readers worldwide."

So far in 2012, for every 100 print books Amazon.co.uk has sold, it has sold 114 Kindle books. This includes sales of hardcover and paperback books by Amazon.co.uk where there is no Kindle edition. Amazon said that it excluded free Kindle books from the tally but claims that they would make the number even higher.

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