Amazon: We have 70-80 percent of e-book market

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

I hate the proprietary format and honestly don't see a need for it. If Amazon sold ePub as well, they would basically own the ebook market. So, B&N or Sony or Kobo would make an initial sale of their reader, but most people would end up back at Amazon for the ebooks. They just do it better.

I agree 100%. Right now, I hate Amazon, but the second they condescend to sell me e-books I can read on the device of my choice, I'll go back to them. I still use them sometimes to look for a book, or for reviews on a book I heard about. They are the best. I miss them every day.

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by banjobama

I didn't know it was even possible to buy Kindle books without a Kindle device or application of some kind.

Yep, I've been buying Kindle books for a while now and having them sent to my "Kindle4PC" account. I've only actually owned a Kindle for a couple of weeks.

[banjobama]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Yep, I've been buying Kindle books for a while now and having them sent to my "Kindle4PC" account. I've only actually owned a Kindle for a couple of weeks.

Well, yes, Kindle for PC would still count as a Kindle application. I mean, you can't just buy the book and download it and save it without their software or device. I can definitely see the appeal; they practically hold your hand throughout the process.

[tench]

Nevermind, I misread. :-)

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by banjobama

Well, yes, Kindle for PC would still count as a Kindle application. I mean, you can't just buy the book and download it and save it without their software or device. I can definitely see the appeal; they practically hold your hand throughout the process.

Oops, I obviously wasn't reading for content -- missed the word "application" in your post.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by tench

...--why won't they sell epub, either DRM'd or not? That's the mystery to me.

If they did it would be ePub with Amazon DRM, not Adobe. I'm sure Amazon has no interest in paying Adobe all the fees involved in using their DRM, it's why they bought Mobipocket in the first place.

[leebase]

Without releasing sales numbers, this is just marketing speak. I'm shocked by how low th percentage of sales to non kindle owners is. I would have thought Amazon would be selling more books on the iPad than apple does. Now it appears that would not be the case.

Apple never claimed to have 20% of the market. They said that of the publishers that sell via the iBookstore, they are being told, by the publishers, that the iPad has taken 20%.

The ones selling on the iPad are the agency model publishers.

Amazon did not state if it was counting revenue or units for it's 70% market.

If Amazon is right and has 80% of the ebook market, then I really doubt that apple has anything to fear from the anti competitive investigation.

Lee

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by leebase

I'm shocked by how low th percentage of sales to non kindle owners is. I would have thought Amazon would be selling more books on the iPad than apple does. Now it appears that would not be the case.

Really? 20% of Amazon's Kindle DRMed e-books sales are to people who don't own Kindle hardware and you find this number "low"? That's a lot of folks reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" on an iPad screen showing 100 words at a time, or an Android smartphone or Blackberry showing 50 words, or hanging out in front of their PC. A lot.

Originally Posted by leebase

Amazon did not state if it was counting revenue or units for it's 70% market.

I'm not sure it really matters -- percentage of revenue and percentage of units is likely going to track roughly equally among vendors. Amazon was careful to state its stats referred to paid sales. Amazon already demonstrated it was doing very well, thank you very much, with mainstream titles like 75% of all James Patterson e-book sales. It's significant that no one else has taken the bait -- including Apple -- of producing figures to show sales leadership from one angle or another.

[vaughnmr]

Yea, his (Leebase) statement totally blew me away too. Amazon is dominating the market for ebooks right now with the missteps by others, and if 20% of their market is by "other than Kindle, it's huge. Given the lack of selection and pricing at iBookstore now, I don't know if they would even be viable except for the large iPad sales.

[Chris Crouch]

Originally Posted by leebase

Without releasing sales numbers, this is just marketing speak. I'm shocked by how low th percentage of sales to non kindle owners is. I would have thought Amazon would be selling more books on the iPad than apple does. Now it appears that would not be the case.

If you take their numbers at face value, 20% of 75% means that Amazon have 15% of the whole ebook market reading Amazon books on something other than a Kindle.

So their non-kindle market share is roughly as big as anyone else's entire market share. That seems pretty big to me.

Chris

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Chris Crouch

If you take their numbers at face value, 20% of 75% means that Amazon have 15% of the whole ebook market reading Amazon books on something other than a Kindle.

So their non-kindle market share is roughly as big as anyone else's entire market share. That seems pretty big to me.

Chris

That got me thinking. According to these figures, the paying e-books market would be split between:

- Kindle owners buying at Amazon: 60% - reading device: Kindle
- Non Kindle owners buying at Amazon: 15% - reading devices: smartphone, iPad, PC, ...
- Other online stores: 25% - reading devices: all of the above, plus e-ink devices other than the Kindle

I wonder if this tallies with devices statistics in the U.S. Does Kindle have that big a market share (around 60% of all reading devices)? I suppose those figures are not known either.

[TimMason]

The Kindle's rise to preeminence is an example of how competition works. The Amazon name was enough to make it the brand-leader almost from the moment it appeared, and journalists who write about ereaders use the word 'Kindle' as if it were the generic term. Whether it really is better than the others, or whether the delivery model is the best for customers, is moot.

iBooks have probably come to the market too late to do much about Amazon's dominance. The fact that it is very badly thought out won't help, but then iTunes isn't particularly simple to navigate either.

So I'd guess that unless something really unexpected happens, Amazon will control the ebook market in the foreseeable future.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by TimMason

The Kindle's rise to preeminence is an example of how competition works. The Amazon name was enough to make it the brand-leader almost from the moment it appeared, and journalists who write about ereaders use the word 'Kindle' as if it were the generic term. Whether it really is better than the others, or whether the delivery model is the best for customers, is moot.

I don't think it was just brand name at play. If you look at the state of the US ebook market at that moment, the biggest device player was Sony and there were a few much smaller companies like Cybook and iRex. The main stores were places like Sony Connect, Books on Board and Fictionwise. Ebook prices were pretty much the same as full paper MSRP. We're talking over $20 for new releases. Amazon came in and offered $9.99 new releases in addition to a brain-dead easy store and some compelling features in the reader itself (free wireless, dictionary, search, annotation). Add to that the visibility it had on the front page of Amazon.com and you get a powerful package. The name was certainly part of it, but there was a lot more to it.

[TimMason]

If you look at the state of the US ebook market at that moment, the biggest device player was Sony and there were a few much smaller companies like Cybook and iRex. The main stores were places like Sony Connect, Books on Board and Fictionwise

In the UK - and in France - people were talking about 'the Kindle' before you could buy one - in fact, I believe you still have to go to Amazon.com to get one - and before you could buy books for it. The store is still very restricted in its offerings outside the U.S. But it still seems to be the only ereader anyone talks about. My daily, The Guardian, is full of it - that and the iPad.

Amazon had a good, intuitive understanding of the book market from the early days. I hope they continue to maintain that understanding with ebooks.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by TimMason

In the UK - and in France - people were talking about 'the Kindle' before you could buy one - in fact, I believe you still have to go to Amazon.com to get one - and before you could buy books for it. The store is still very restricted in its offerings outside the U.S. But it still seems to be the only ereader anyone talks about. My daily, The Guardian, is full of it - that and the iPad.

Amazon had a good, intuitive understanding of the book market from the early days. I hope they continue to maintain that understanding with ebooks.

The situation is different for Amazon in Europe now. Publishers and distributors are creating a market that has (thanks in part to Amazon) more visibility than it used to. They are not waiting for Amazon, and they have chosen the ePub format with Adobe DRM. If Amazon some day decides to seriously attack the European market, they will not be able to shape it the way they did in the U.S.

Right now, if you are a French customer who wants to buy a reading device and ebooks, logically you will turn to fnac, who has the largest offer at the moment. You will buy a Sony or Cybook reader and ePub e-books. When Amazon arrives on the market, you may be happy to have more choice - until you learn that you cannot read Amazon's ebooks on your Sony or Cybook.

Unless Amazon acts very quickly, they will arrive on a market where a number of people already have a reader. They may not all be ready to drop everything and buy a Kindle. I do hope that this will incite Amazon to reconsider their ridiculous closed-format policy and to offer books that can be read on various devices. Well, I can dream, can't I?