Quote:
Originally Posted by StanByk
Hi,
found an interesting article on macrumours.
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/11/30/...der-ownership/
Do you think that classical ebook reading devices will ever be able to become main stream devices? With tablets becoming more common and being much more versatile, I am wondering if ebook reader sales have reached a peak and will go downhill from now on? |
The chart shows that iPad is increasing its market share, while the Kindle share is decreasing. What it does not show is how large the market is. Despite the decreasing market share, Kindle's actual unit sales might be increasing.
There will undoubtedly come a time when iPads outsell Kindles. But so what? It's Apples, so to speak, and Oranges. iPads are computers; Kindles are dedicated EBRs.
In short, your question can't be answered by extrapolating from the data in this article.
Personally, I think that dedicated EBRs like the Kindle will continue to become cheaper, to the point where they are ubiquitous among the reading population.
My household is a book household. We have hundreds of pbooks. I have 5 sons. Three are readers - that is, consumers of books. Two of the readers have EBRs and iPads. (The other is a dedicated library/Borders/B&N reader - he doesn't ever buy books.)
But the two non-readers are also the two youngest. Do they represent the future of reading? Or will they become readers as they get older, as their older brothers did? (My bet - one will, one won't.) So the real question is whether the reading population will get larger or smaller. If the former, EBRs will thrive. If the latter, they will gradually disappear.