Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherCat
On the ereader front it has got to the stage around here that there have been so few new ones sold for so long now that it would be a surprise if there was to be much business to be conducted having anything whatsoever to do with any of them let alone replacing their batteries. Is pretty much all phones, tablets, and to a lesser extent pbooks I see being used now, no doubt there are still some ereaders in use but I don't recall seeing anyone using one for a long time.
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eReaders are still selling in substantial numbers, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing new ones regularly. Kindles even go out of stock for a short period at a time. New sales are declining, year to year, but that says nothing about the installed base. Or the number of active users.
Unlike phones, eink readers don't typically get replaced until they break.
And over time they have been getting better and more reliable than early models.
The same thing has been happening with tablets: they do what they need to do as well as they ever did so sales have leveled off and are declining slowly. People have little reason to upgrade until the hardware fails, which isn't often. It not that less people are using them but that the market is close to saturation.
Check this:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/peak-i...come-and-gone/
Apple got past the "peak ipad" by introducing the larger ipad pro and lowering the price of the smaller models.
Amazon and Kobo don't really have that option since the market for bigger readers is tiny so their solution has been to upgrade the low end and add a premium model. It boosts their bottom line but ereaders are single function devices so premium models don't offer much in the way of compelling upsell attraction.
So yes, eink sales are declining but the user base is probably still growing. Just slower.
Understandable given the durability of the gadgets and the decline of BPH ebook sales because of the pricing.
As for seeing users out in the wild, don't forget ereaders tend to be used for entertainment reading. At home.
Phones when used for reading are used for opportunistic reading, here and there, mostly outside the house. Tablets can be used for more than reading so while ereaders are sold for reading, tablets are bought for many different uses. Both will outsell ereaders but don't necessarily displace them. Many people have both, or all three.