Kindle Is King of the Market —But It's a Small Market

Amazon's electronic reader is up against tough demographics

By Sam Biddle, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 5, 2008 9:14 PM CDT

(Newser) – After about 9 months on the market, how goes the Kindle? No official sales figures are out for Amazon's electronic reader, but Liz Gunnison of Portfolio tries to get a sense of things. If you were expecting it to ignite a revolution in reading, keep dreaming. Amazon has likely sold about 240,000—that puts revenue at about $100 million, a "rounding error" by Amazon standards—and Gunnison doesn't see a huge market beyond that because of a host of demographic and market factors.

We're talking about reading, after all, "not exactly a growth industry," Gunnison writes. "The bottom line? Designing the game-changing e-reader, it seems, is more like designing the game-changing harpsichord than the iPod." Still, Amazon has two big things going in its favor: Profit margins on the $359 device are high, and a potential big market looms in academia as an alternative to bulky textbooks.

Amazon.com chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos holds the Kindle, a portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Amazon.com chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos praises the Kindle, a portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, introduces the Kindle at a news conference in New York in this Nov. 19, 2007, file photo. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

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Kindle Is King of the Market —But It's a Small Market

Amazon's electronic reader is up against tough demographics

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Kindle Users Borrow 300K eBooks Monthly

Ebook publishing program expands lending library

How Indie Bookstores Can Battle Amazon

Time for local shops to go high-tech: Farhad Manjoo

Guess How Many Kindles We're Buying a Week?

1M!

Independent Bookstores Should Go Away

They're inefficient and charge too much: Farhad Manjoo

E-gads! Airport Scanners Harming Kindles, Say Users

Static might be the culprit, but Kindle denies any problem

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OTHER STORIES ON OUR RADAR

technology • reading • Jeff Bezos • Kindle • Amazon • ebooks

MOST POPULAR STORIES

[ By Views ]

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More Newser Stories

Kindle Users Borrow 300K eBooks Monthly

Ebook publishing program expands lending library

How Indie Bookstores Can Battle Amazon

Time for local shops to go high-tech: Farhad Manjoo

Guess How Many Kindles We're Buying a Week?

1M!

Independent Bookstores Should Go Away

They're inefficient and charge too much: Farhad Manjoo

E-gads! Airport Scanners Harming Kindles, Say Users

Static might be the culprit, but Kindle denies any problem

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Newser By Users

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