Kindle vs Nook US market share

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

As pointed out, before the Price Fix, hardware prices were competitive and everybody was rushing to get in the business. Post fix, Nook and Kindle operate at a different level from the hardware-only vendors and pretty much all the no-names are moving to LCD android tablets instead. Coincidence?

Prior to agency, Amazon had 90% of the market and was trouncing all other providers because it was able to offer lower prices. Publishers pushed agency for just this reason - it would weaken Amazon because Amazon would no longer be able to compete on price.

Hardware prices don't have anything to do with the agency model: hardware prices started coming down when the Nook, specifically, undercut Amazon. Prices went down even more when Amazon responded to the iPad with the low cost K3.

Amazon and Nook do have the advantage that they can sell the hardware cheaply and profit from the books - but the agency model doesn't play a role here one way or another.

[fjtorres]

Amazon's early lead in ebook sales was inherently unsustainable; the only reason it was ever that high was because they were operating in a near vacuum. Once they got meaningful competition in late 09 the numbers started to shift, *before* the fix came in.
There is no evidence that the Price Fix scheme has achieved nothing but provide small and medium publishers (and Random House) with a price umbrella to grow their market share at the expense of the Price Fix five and exarcerbate the disputes with authors over ebook royalty rates. Yes, Amazon's share has dropped. But with Nook grabbing 20% of the reader market and Apple shipping 30 million iPads, it was going to drop anyway.

On the other hand, both K1 and K2 were introduced with markups of 80-100% (iSupply teardown estimates) but K3 is shipping with maybe a 10% markup and selling via B&M retail at the same price as online. Quite a change in philosophy. Where's the makeup money coming from? Agency books, of course. Hardware and content support each other; it's all one company.

Finally, Agency Pricing is sooo bad for Amazon that the State AGs investigating it are targeting Amazon as co-conspirators along with Apple and the publishers rather than as victims. It may not have been their idea but it sure is helping them out. "Please don't throw me into the briar patch!"

Oh, and lets not forget that Amazon price competition was about using the ebooks to get people to buy Kindles; now, they're lowballing the Kindle to sell the books to buyers who can only buy DRM'ed content from them. Kindle has always been a separate market from the epub market; buyers choose one or the other and are stuck with it for the duration (barring DeDRM). All Agency Pricing achieved was give them more money to play with off those books.

All the evidence I've seen makes it clear Agency Pricing is good to Apple and Random House, great for Amazon and non-BPH publishers, and lousy for consumers and the Price Fix Five themselves.

Pretending it actually hurt Amazon in any meaningful way is just not in the numbers out there.

[Valentino]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

To what do you attribute the dominance of the Kindle?

Sony having ridiculous prices. I bought a kindle because, while I wanted a sony, they made me laugh with their totally insane price.(Never considered a nook for obvious reasons)

The result is that my family, including mom, brothers, sister, nephews and neices, ie.. alot, bought kindles, because of course I'm the "linux and tech guy".

It was really upsetting at first, but after seeing that sony is going to sue geohot, I'm so glad now, I didn't bring all my support to them.

I still can't deny that sony has the best ereaders, besides their crap font.