Quote:
Originally Posted by robko
In the U.S. they don't sell very many which is why you maybe don't hear much. I've never seen hard numbers but they are definitely a bigger player (likely #2 or #3 in the market I'd guess) outside the U.S. so we are talking a decent number of devices.
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Averaging several sets of numbers I found for worldwide e-reader market share -- none of which agreed with each other all that well, the average was Amazon at #1 with ~53% and Kobo at #2 with ~22%. In the USA, Amazon is #1 and anything after that is downright murky as several research firms seem to have difficulty with their research methodology. Oddities such as one report on eInk ereader market share listing Apple being #2 with the Microsoft Surface Pro being on the list. B&N and Sony were also there but Kobo was noticeably missing.
Going by the results from several studies, it would appear that Kobo is very slightly behind or ahead of B&N in the US market though again, there seemed to be some issues with separating eInk ereaders sales from LCD tablet sales and two of the three studies which were purportedly from 2014 still showed Sony as a player in the US ereader market.
But then "In 2014 eBooks will begin their inevitable decline and readers will once again be populating their local bookstore." to quote one "industry expert".