More books on iPad than kindle in UK

[leebase]

http://gigaom.com/2011/02/18/apple-b...n-uk-at-least/

Says iPad and iPhone each outsell kindle for books. Not so, yet, in the US

Lee

[mjhudston]

I think amazon missed a trick here. Sony beat the kindle to the ebook Market in the UK by a wide margin, so those who were after a dedicated reader, already had a device.

Then along came the iPad, which covered what other people were looking for. That along with the many android tablet devices, means that the Kindle will now never reach it's full potential in the UK or Europe. That and the fact you can't side load into the kindle, and some recent bad press on the BBC watchdog program over kindle pricing, means I think that the kindle will always struggle here in the UK.

[Graham]

I'm not sure I follow the conclusions here. In the US the Kindle has been available for much longer than over here in the UK, so there was a bigger installed base who haven't yet thrown away their Kindles, and of course more people are going to buy general purpose devices like the iPads or phones like the iPhone, and if they have them and want to read will turn to those devices.

That doesn't mean to say that they're not reading Amazon titles on Kindle apps though.

Graham

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by mjhudston

I think amazon missed a trick here. Sony beat the kindle to the ebook Market in the UK by a wide margin, so those who were after a dedicated reader, already had a device.

Not in all cases. I've been keeping an eye on e-readers for years, but only bought one in September. Two things held me back - I wanted to see one for myself, and I didn't want to pay more than £100-£150.

Originally Posted by mjhudston

That and the fact you can't side load into the kindle, and some recent bad press on the BBC watchdog program over kindle pricing, means I think that the kindle will always struggle here in the UK.

You can side load onto the Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/cust...=200493090#usb
I wasn't aware of bad press on Watchdog. Was it about ebook prices or hardware prices? I don't suppose you have an iPlayer link?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mjhudston

That and the fact you can't side load into the kindle, and some recent bad press on the BBC watchdog program over kindle pricing, means I think that the kindle will always struggle here in the UK.

What on Earth are you talking about? You can load books into the Kindle via its USB cable just as you can with any other reader.

I certainly get the impression that the Kindle is doing extremely well in the UK. A number of my work colleagues have bought them, who have previously had no interest in eBooks.

[harold1066]

Originally Posted by mjhudston

I think amazon missed a trick here. Sony beat the kindle to the ebook Market in the UK by a wide margin, so those who were after a dedicated reader, already had a device.

I don't know one person who has a sony e-reader, yet since the K3 has been released in the UK, friends who own K3 is up to 6.

Since Christmas I'm see more people about with kindles, and as those figures are only showing up until September 2010, I'm guessing there will be a big change from September to February.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by leebase

http://gigaom.com/2011/02/18/apple-b...n-uk-at-least/

Says iPad and iPhone each outsell kindle for books. Not so, yet, in the US

Seems to be an awful lot of assumptions being made in that article, but in any case it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was the case when you consider how much the ipad has been marketed unlike the kindle that only launched properly in the UK with the K3 as prior to that the system was little more than formalised grey importing.

I'm sure that certain people will try to claim that such figures would imply that apple are doing a lot for kindle and more than deserve their 30%, while conveniently ignoring how many of those ipads will have been sold (and generated profits at that time) in order to read kindle books or other such things.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by harold1066

I don't know one person who has a sony e-reader, yet since the K3 has been released in the UK, friends who own K3 is up to 6.

Since Christmas I'm see more people about with kindles, and as those figures are only showing up until September 2010, I'm guessing there will be a big change from September to February.

I think the proper launch in the UK along with the very good pricing of the K3 will have resulted in a large jump in the number of kindle owners, previously I think I only knew 1 person with a k2i, whereas I know at least half a dozen who got a k3 for xmas.

[maianhvk]

Originally Posted by leebase

http://gigaom.com/2011/02/18/apple-b...n-uk-at-least/

Says iPad and iPhone each outsell kindle for books. Not so, yet, in the US

Lee

this is but I have to ask, why can't I see the page? There's no 'No webpage available' - just blank. The refresh button doesn't seem to be active either, it should turn blue everytime I point the mouse at it.

[HarryT]

The link works absolutely fine for me.

[maianhvk]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The link works absolutely fine for me.

Bingo. Chrome is helpful this time. I wonder why the good Firefox version 4.0 beta 11 fails.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Bingo. Chrome is helpful this time. I wonder why the good Firefox version 4.0 beta 11 fails.

Don't know in your case, but Firefox 4 beta 11 opens it just fine for me.

[Andrew H.]

I always like surveys like this, but I think that this one isn't really that helpful because of it focuses on the devices and not on the number of books read.

I.e., if this survey spoke to a person who read one book last year (say "Alice in Wonderland") on his iPad, and a person who read 20 books last year on his Kindle, the survey would conclude that the market was split 50-50 between Kindle and iPad. This, I think, also explains why the computer ranks so high as an e-book reader.

This data is useful for some purposes, I'm sure - but what I think everyone would really like to know is, of all e-books sold, how many were read on the iPad, Kindle, Sony, etc. And we'd like to know this by format, including DRM. And we'd like to know it by unit sold *and* by amount sold. And we'd like to know how many were indies vs. tradpubs.

Also, we'd like a pony. :-)

But, more seriously, I think the interesting question is not, "if you read an e-book last year, what device did you read it on," but "*how many* e-books did you read last year, and on what device or devices.*

[astra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I certainly get the impression that the Kindle is doing extremely well in the UK. A number of my work colleagues have bought them, who have previously had no interest in eBooks.

My impression as well.
I don't know anyone who bought Sony in the last two years, but I know that my colleague's husband received it as a Christmas gift. Her daughter who is a lecturer in a university, bought one for herself and one for her husband. She said they are starting to use Kindles in the university. Another colleague of mine bought kindle a few weeks ago. She managed to break its screen and got a free of charge new replacement kindle.
I have seen only one person with iPad though. Well, she bought it...just like another colleague of mine bought Sony Reader PRS-505 2 years ago. Both gadgets dutifully gather dust on their respectful shelves.

[Kali Yuga]

I concur that it would be better to know "the number of titles read on what platform" and/or "the amount of time spent on one platform." One thing that always amuses me about this particular metric, which some US companies also use, is that for some reason PC's always end up beating the other devices by a huge margin.

That said, I do think the demographic data is useful and illustrates a few differences between the US and the UK. I don't think it will make all that much difference, except in terms of which titles may end up going digital first.

I'd be very curious to find out what ebook's market share in the UK is as well. If they are in fact 18 months behind the US, it's probably still in the 1-2% range of all book sales.