It Looks Like Being A Kindle Christmas
Although the e-book reader market is relatively new, it has the potential for exponential growth in the near future. The Amazon Kindle family of readers has been the undisputed king of the hill up to now. The Kindle 2, released in February of 2009, and the large display DX model, launched in June of 2009, have had very little genuine competition and have dominated the market. Both the potential of the market in general, and its importance to Amazon in particular, can be seen by the fact that the Kindle is now Amazon’s number one selling product – bar none.
However, there are plenty of manufacturers with new readers in the pipeline, many of which are planned for release before the end of the year with some others to follow in the early part of 2010. Two of the main contenders for the Kindle’s crown are the Sony Daily Edition reader and the Nook reader from Barnes and Noble. Both of these were planned for launch in mid-December 2009, in time to catch the pre-Christmas sales rush.
With a ticket price of $399, Sony’s Daily Edition reader is available for pre-order. Delivery in time for Xmas is not guaranteed however. According to the Sony website, the reader will start to ship on December’ – on a first come first served rota. The high level of interest seems to have surprised Sony and there are no guarantees of receipt prior to Christmas, albeit Sony will make every effort to ensure this.
Meanwhile, the Barnes and Noble Nook, which was also scheduled for a mid-December roll-out, has had its launch date delayed until January 2010 for any orders received after November 20. High demand is again cited as the reason for the delay.
In order to make at least some sales over the holiday period, Barnes and Noble is offering a “holiday certificate” for their reader. This advises the lucky recipient that they will get their reader sometime early in 2010 – but it’s hardly the same on Christmas morning.
There are plenty of indications that the e-book reader market is about to enter a period of rapid growth over the next twelve months or so. For the moment at least, Amazon is still number one and seems likely to dominate this year’s gift sales. The level of competition will ramp up in 2010 – but Amazon is still pretty much unchallenged in the run up to Christmas. Next year Amazon can be expected to fight to defend its market leading position. The Kindle is their number one product (with 60% of the U.S. market and a recent international launch) and it will be very interesting to see how things pan out. Consumers will be the chief beneficiaries of increased competition levels as price levels are forced down of course.
Read reviews for the Kindle reader and find out how you can save a lot of money by downloading free Kindle books straight from the Amazon Kindlestore.