Analyst predicts $750M worth of Kindle sales by 2010

[Alisa]

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, who was originally quite down on the Kindle, is now rather rosy about it's outlook making the projection that the adoption curve will follow the iPod but only be half as much. Here are his projections.



As much as I adore my Kindle, I also think Jobs had a point when he said no one reads anymore. I think a lot of people do read, but not in huge numbers like those that buy music and videos. Maybe with a more multifunction device, something that was great for textbooks, maybe a huge price drop, I could see that. What do we think? Is 50% reasonable? Does Mahaney need to put the pipe down?

Reported by Gizmodo and cNet.

Original article at the Silicon Alley Insider.

[pilotbob]

They are estimating that Kindle owner's will buy 1, 9.99 book per month. I guess that is realistic... considering Kindle owners are probably avid readers or they would not have spent $400 on the reader. Actually, 1 book per month might be lowballing it.

BOb

[Ervserver]

I think Apple will release a reader

[Alisa]

I think if Apple does so, they'll wait until the technology is more mature.

[Lima_dat]

Originally Posted by Alisa

I think if Apple does so, they'll wait until the technology is more mature.

Apple will wait until mainstream e-book piracy is more mature. Jump in and clean up with cheap legal downloads and slick, mature hardware.

[kevinpars]

Apple's pricing is legal but I certainly would not call it cheap. 99 cents a song is a lot of money.

[cstross]

The projection is for sales of about 2.3 million units over 2-3 years, and for readers buying 12 books per year on average.

That's less than 1% of the total functionally literate US population. And, lest we forget, folks who read 12 books per year are high up in the top quartile of that population -- who average <em>one</em> book per year (with the top 1% probably accounting for 30-45% of all book consumption).

So, this sales projection is probably achievable. But it's not terribly promising, either.

[Tom90deg]

I agree, people don't seem to read anymore, which makes me sad. I don't know the percentages, but a rather high number of people, once they get out of school, never read again. Sure, maybe one book a year, but that's about it. I'm all in favor of the Kindle, pretty much ANYthing that will get people reading is good for me, we need to do something to make people less dumb. I'm still in favor of removing all safety labels, but apparently that's not "Legal".

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by Tom90deg

I agree, people don't seem to read anymore, which makes me sad. I don't know the percentages, but a rather high number of people, once they get out of school, never read again. Sure, maybe one book a year, but that's about it. I'm all in favor of the Kindle, pretty much ANYthing that will get people reading is good for me, we need to do something to make people less dumb. I'm still in favor of removing all safety labels, but apparently that's not "Legal".

LOL, that could help thin the herd a bit! It is scary the number of people who don't read and get their news from entertainment tonight!

My wife and I are trying to build a love of reading into our kids and so far we've been pretty successful. All three are avid readers for their respective ages. My thirteen year old consumes books at an amazing rate. I think people need to start giving their kids books instead of plopping them in front of the TV!

[radleyp]

As Yogi Berra is alleged to have said, "prediction is hard, especially about the future". Nevertheless, I will venture one: readers will be successful, but not because of the sale of books, but because they will allow for downloads of magazines and newspapers, and students will make increasing use of them for course materials.

[TadW]

First Citigroup, now Goldman Sachs.

Amazon (AMZN) shares this morning are getting a boost from Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchell, who added the stock to the firm’s Americas Conviction Buy List, and upped his price target to $98 from $75. “Based on a measured online-offline strategy; Prime, Kindle, and mobile tapping pent-up demand; and share gains in a growing market, we estimate it can sustain 20%-plus/year unit growth over 5-10 years,” Mitchell wrote in a research note this morning.

via Barrons Blogs

[weatherman]

Originally Posted by Lima_dat

Apple will wait until mainstream e-book piracy is more mature. Jump in and clean up with cheap legal downloads and slick, mature hardware.

That's just what Amazon did. Well, except the slick part. I don't see Apple getting into this market at all - the race will be over before Cupertino even knows there was a race to be had.

Ironically the Sony Reader seems to have gotten a big bump from all this talk about ebooks and is outselling the Kindle on Amazon's own site. Sure, before the Kindle it was pretty much the only ebook there, but I think the Kindle has had a halo effect on Sony's products. It'll be interesting to see how the competition shapes up between the two, and whether Sony will be able to keep the market advantage or if they'll be killed by Kindle's lock on content.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by weatherman

Ironically the Sony Reader seems to have gotten a big bump from all this talk about ebooks and is outselling the Kindle on Amazon's own site.

How were you able to determine that? Not saying it's not true, I just want to know how you figured that out.

[honeybunny]

I assume you would search for "ebook reader" and sort by t he "Bestselling" option. I don't know how the "Bestselling" criteria are determined though.

[honeybunny]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?ke...82&sort=pmrank