Ebooks Now Outselling Physical Books on Amazon UK

News
By Jane McEntegart
published

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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Jane McEntegart
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • memadmax
    Duh.
    Kindle and other book machines are definitely the way to go.
    I got my wife a Kindle Fire and she has read more in the past 6/7 months than she has in her entire life.

    Plus it's alot easier on the eyes, nicer to your neighbor when reading in bed(extra light), and you can get a ton of books on demand.

    It's a bookworms' dream, or college kid, or someone like me the digests information like there's no tommorrow.
    Reply
  • monktongaz
    If they stopped clinging on to the past and released new releases on ebook at the same time as the physical book, I wouldn't ever need paper books again.

    I view my Kindle as one of the best innovations in recent memory and one of my best purchases.
    Reply
  • sa1nt
    I'm glad for Mr.Tree :)
    Reply
  • belardo
    You can also get Kindle books on iOS and Android. No Kindle hardware required.
    Reply
  • monktongaz
    belardoYou can also get Kindle books on iOS and Android. No Kindle hardware required.
    Also WP7 and PCs. Pretty much anywhere. That's the beauty of the system.
    Reply
  • hoof_hearted
    outlw6669And then...So, not outselling all physical books, only the more expensive hard cover editions.Not sure exactly how many more paperbacks are being sold, but I would expect it to be a significant amount.
    The subtitle said hard-copy, not hard-cover
    Reply
  • blackened144
    I remember when the last Harry Potter book came out I had just got my ereader and thought it would be the perfect first book to read on it.. After 2 days of searching for somewhere to buy the ebook I found out that JK Rowling decided that there was too much piracy in ebooks and refused to release it that format.. So guess how I ended up reading the book on my ereader? Good thing shes finally come around on that as its definitely the future..
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    Hopefully this trend continues and forces publishers to lower prices.
    Reply