Quote:
Originally Posted by jshzh
who are the big four?
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The four eink reader vendors that get all the mainstream and tech media coverage as industry leaders and are generally understood to be selling a million-plus readers a year.
- Kindle
- B&N
- Sony
- Kobo
What makes them "big" isn't just sales, as Pocketbook and a couple of chinese brands are probably running neck and neck with Sony & Kobo, but visibility. Most mainstream reader buyers are barely aware other brands exist, much less that they might have a superior value proposition. The bulk of reader sales today are no longer going to hobbyists or techies, but to "normal" people.
Stroll by the "what to get" forum and you'll see thread after thread cross-shopping the big four. Brands that were prominent just a year ago (Astak, iRex, BeBook, Bookeen, etc) are gone or afterthoughts. Pocketbook mantains worldwide relevance because of the PB360 and 9xx models, otherwise they might be just another regional player in the shadow of the big guys.
It's somewhat Dickensian; the best of times for the industry, the worst of times for many vendors. In the last two years industry sales have gone from 2 million or so a year to 20 million-plus. But almost all that growth has gone to North American brands; Kindle is running as high as a million a month, Nook despite its self-imposed regional limits is doing something like half of that, and Kobo in 1 year went from non-existent to matching/bettering Sony in sales and features. Consider that the likes of Samsung, ACER, and ASUS have all tried to get in the game and achieved essentially nothing. Next up, Panasonic tries their hand. And keep an eye on post-bankruptcy Borders, USA.
Right now, Sony is widely expected to announce new hardware as the current models are effectively gone. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with. If they come up with anything for the world market. I wouldn't be shocked to see them pull back to asia-only models.
It's early in the ebook game, but right now it looks like it is the ebookstores that sell readers, not tech or features.