3 Million Amazon Kindles sold so far
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/29/3-million-amazon-kindles-sold-apparently/

Very nice for a black and white screen on a single-purpose device. Are you seeing the sales potential for the iPad in those numbers?

calebcar - 31 January 2010 11:26 AM

3 Million Amazon Kindles sold so far
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/29/3-million-amazon-kindles-sold-apparently/

Now we know what the minimum market size is for the iPad.  Kindle users look like switchers to me.

It should be an interesting battle.  If the 10M first year sales guesses are even half right, The Ipad will have outsold Kindle by Christmas 2010.  I have offered to buy my mom and wife a Kindle, but they both said no and they read books everyday.  My wife though recently sat next to a person using a Kindle on a flight and she thought it was pretty neat.  Many avid readers are on the fence about ebooks and that works to Apple’s advantage.  The fact you get a great E reader with best in class web browsing means folks who buy the IPAD might grow into E reading books.  For the Kindle you have to make the leap of faith that E readers are right for the task.  Just like folks who bought the Iphone as a phone and then discovered the world of apps and mobile web browsing.

The Kindle and the Nook are vulnerable to the popularity of the iPad. The question is: Who will Apple use as its content source for publishers not contracted directly?

There’s a role here for Amazon if the company plays it right.

The Kindle is fine until the iPad hits the market. Is Amazon willing to invest heavily in hardware R&D to compete or is the company using the Kindle in large part to push eBook adoption as a means to maintain revenue and earnings growth through the sales of eBooks as that market transitions quickly from print to digital distribution?

DawnTreader - 31 January 2010 12:54 PM

The Kindle and the Nook are vulnerable to the popularity of the iPad. The question is: Who will Apple use as its content source for publishers not contracted directly?

There’s a role here for Amazon if the company plays it right.

The Kindle is fine until the iPad hits the market. Is Amazon willing to invest heavily in hardware R&D to compete or is the company using the Kindle in large part to push eBook adoption as a means to maintain revenue and earnings growth through the sales of eBooks as that market transitions quickly from print to digital distribution?

Who needs Amazon once they have an Ipad?

calebcar - 31 January 2010 01:16 PM

Who needs Amazon once they have an Ipad?

Who will Apple use for content supply from publishers not under direct contract? Is there a role for Amazon similar to the role the company plays supplying content for audiobook sales?

DawnTreader - 31 January 2010 12:54 PM

The Kindle and the Nook are vulnerable to the popularity of the iPad. The question is: Who will Apple use as its content source for publishers not contracted directly?

There’s a role here for Amazon if the company plays it right.

The Kindle is fine until the iPad hits the market. Is Amazon willing to invest heavily in hardware R&D to compete or is the company using the Kindle in large part to push eBook adoption as a means to maintain revenue and earnings growth through the sales of eBooks as that market transitions quickly from print to digital distribution?

Surely the beauty is that the Kindle app works on the iPad too, so iPad users get access to Amazon/Kindle AND Apple/iTunes content (plus all the non-copyright eBooks out there), whereas poor old Kindle users, well they’re just totally screwed and locked into Amazon.
For eBook lovers, the solid argument AGAINST buying a Kindle is that an iPad will offer more books than the Kindle, right out of of the box because it allows you to buy books from either iTunes or Amazon. Amazing people seem to keep on forgetting .... “Kindle books from Amazon? There’s an app for that..” .. and if Amazon have an iota of common sense, they’ll make their Kindle reader for the iPhone/iPad absolutely fantastic. After all, its the ebook sales Amazon’ll be making money from predominantly, not that plastic-craptapulous Kindle POS, so the more iPads people buy which people run the Kindle app on, the better for Amazon - IF Amazon have the balls and vision to try and out-Apple Apple with the UI of their iPad Kindle app, along with keeping their prices competitive. Whether Apple will allow Amazon to compete with iTunes full-on on the iPad is another matter, but as Apple’s chiefly interested in hardware sales promoted by media availability, and Amazon is the opposite, there’s a natural marriage of interests here if the egos can be but to one side…
Either way, the iPad wins, Kindle loses. Amazon can still win, but it will have to do so on Apple’s terms, ie. selling ebooks for iPad users of the Kindle app, if Apple don’t pull it from the app store

The Kindle is toasted.

Tommo, I agree.

The Kindle looks dated compared to the iPad. Amazon’s future is providing content distribution, not selling hardware. There’s no way Amazon can compete in hardware development and pushing eBook adoption on the iPad is one way out of the box.

Amazon could drive revenue by pushing its eBook reader for the iPhone OS. No doubt there are some who will buy a specific-function eBook reader, but it’s outclassed by the iPad and the Kindle’s market potential was truncated on January 27th.

Will Amazon respond smartly?

The Kindle is about as much competition for the iPad as my shuffle is competition for an iPod touch. In other words, there’s no competition except for those who want to save some money and are looking specifically for a single-use device to satisfy their needs. The iPad has diminished the size of that market overnight.

Is there a role for I pad to encroach on amazon territory as a general on line retailer?

calebcar - 31 January 2010 02:43 PM

Is there a role for I pad to encroach on amazon territory as a general on line retailer?

or for an amazon app on the I-pad?

calebcar - 31 January 2010 02:43 PM

Is there a role for I pad to encroach on amazon territory as a general on line retailer?

No doubt Apple will seek direct contracts with publishers, especially in the education market. But I see newspapers and magazines as the first wave of assault. I see Amazon having both much to win and much to lose depending on how the company chooses to play the device. Ignore it or try to compete with it only at your own peril.

calebcar - 31 January 2010 11:26 AM

3 Million Amazon Kindles sold so far

That is based on an unknown source.

No credibility.

Well my estimate was 3 million already. It has to be between 2 and 4, so it’s 3.

e-ink display is perfect for a pure book reader device, which simply isn’t going to sell in sufficient volume to suit Apple and would distort Apple’s product family because of the many things it can’t do. Amazon were correct to introduce their own hardware as soon as possible, because they needed to get into the content business as fast as possible, and there’s a category of affluent serial book buyer for whom it’s almost an automatic purchase. I think they’ll be happy to continue selling a million or two a year, and sell most Kindle content via Kindle apps on other platforms.

I believe Apple has already said they won’t block Kindle on iPad. (And if they did, they’d soon be in serious trouble, I think).

(Amazon has boasted what a high percentage of book sales are Kindle editions when both ebook and print are available. My suspicious mind thinks Amazon considers a Kindle edition to be unavailable to anyone who hasn’t bought a Kindle. Therefore they only count print edition sales to Kindle buyers. So my conclusion is not that Kindle buyers spend lots on e-books; it’s that Kindle buyers often buy the print edition anyway, even though could buy a Kindle edition.)

calebcar - 31 January 2010 11:26 AM

3 Million Amazon Kindles sold so far

I have owned ALL THREE verions of the KINDLE AND LOVED THEM.

I sold my KINDLE DX two weeks ago, anticipating replacing it with an iPAD.

With PERSONAL first hand favorable experience with KINDLE’s, I putting the bets 100% on the new AAPL product. There simply is NO COMPARISON.

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