Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

First, let’s take a quick look at the cold hard facts -

Reality is that eReaders are a hot market

In the midst of the Press’ proclamations of the death of dedicated eReaders it is worth taking a quick look at what’s really happening.

Companies keep making eReaders and stay bullish about them

1. Acer, after claiming they had put their eReader plans on hold, surprised everyone by announcing a dedicated eInk eReader that’ll arrive in July. 
2. Amazon continue to expand both the Kindle device and the Kindle service/platform. We’re in the midst of a new firmware update that adds Folders, more font sizes, and other significant changes.
3. Kobo just released their eReader and have worldwide plans.
4. B&N continue to work on Nook with rumors that a Nook 2 and a Nook lite will arrive in 2010.
5. Sony have announced that they will be expanding the Sony Reader to Japan, China, and Australia by end of the year. They also plan on expanding to Italy and Spain.

Here is information from Sony’s Press Release -

Sony anticipates strong global demand for eReaders and eBooks in 2010, specifically within Asian markets.

According to analyst firm Nomura Holdings Inc., Asia represents one of the fastest growing eBook and eReader markets, with Japanese eBook sales topping $500 million in 2009.  Additionally, analyst firm DisplaySearch is predicting that China will become the world’s largest eReader market by 2015.

Sony even say that we hit a global tipping point -

we’ve hit a global tipping point in digital reading with demand for and sales of the Reader dramatically increasing in 2009.

Even companies that aren’t making eReaders (Apple) are pretending their devices are eReaders. That’s the surest sign of a market being hot.

Companies are excited about eBooks and jumping in

Hand in hand with the buzz about eReaders is the huge interest in ebooks -

1. Apple are trying to grab sales via iBooks. In fact they just announced the addition of self-publishing to iBooks.
2. Google is entering the market with Google Editions.
3. Amazon continue to expand – including entering more aspects of Publishing.
4. Acer have tied up with Libri.de in Germany and Founder in China for content in German and Chinese.
5. B&N have their ebook store on Acer’s eReader and on numerous other devices.
6. Kobo are expanding rapidly – Canada, New Zeland, Australia are all seeing Kobo make inroads.
7. Lots of smaller companies like Smashwords are expanding rapidly.

Basically, more and more countries are getting more and more ebooks. So all those dedicated eReaders get lots of new markets and more and more content - lack of content and lack of availability had been two major impediments to the growth of eReaders and both are now gradually disappearing.

The Myth that eReaders are about to die

It’s a constant recurring cycle – Device X will kill dedicated eReaders because it can do more than just read.

First, eReaders were never given a chance because people could just read on their computers. Then, we have the iPhone (Freudian Slip). Then, we had netbooks. Now, we have the iPad. There’s always an eReader killer – whether or not it’s suitable for reading is never even discussed.

Latest Prediction of eReader Death

We have Informa Telecoms & Media writing about how eReaders will peak in 2014. This is what it’s come down to – eReader haters lacking confidence to the degree that they have to push out their predictions of the death of eReaders to 2014.

It’s the strongest possible positive sign for eReaders that ‘analysts’ now think eReaders will die in 2014 and not in 6 months.

The snippets from the press release are comical -

sales are expected to peak at 14 million in 2013, before falling by 7% in 2014 …

This decline will be driven by a shift away from dedicated e-readers towards other multifunction device types, notably mobile phones and tablet-form-factor computing devices including the iPad.

So we’re saying that in 2014 the iPad and Tablets will stall eReader sales at 14 million a year. Not so long ago analysts thought the total eReader market was 50,000 devices.

Informa also offer advice to eReader makers to split into two product lines -

1. Low cost eReaders with minimal features.
2. Higher end eReaders that have transformed into tablets.

So it’s the exact same advice that everyone has been giving eReader makers since 2007.

Reading isn’t worth a $259 device

That’s what the Press and Analysts’ message comes down to.

You should have a zero features, $100 eReader because it’s reading – and reading has no value.

If Amazon and Sony had followed this advice we would not -

1. Have had 4 to 5 million eReaders sold in 2009. 
2. Be near the ebooks tipping point (or perhaps even beyond it). 
3. Be going through the democratization of Publishing. 
4. Be seeing Apple, Google, Acer and other huge companies developing products and software for books and reading.
5. Have seen a much better value proposition for readers.
6. Be in the midst of a revival in reading.
7. Have Kindles, Nooks, Sony Readers, and 50 other devices focused on reading.

Things are much, much better for people who read books and to pretend that eReaders are not the cause is unfair.

14 million eReaders a year in 2014?

We were already at 4-5 million eReaders in 2009 and things are progressing very quickly. It’s foolish to make predictions and it’s even more foolish to predict that a device category that went from 0 to 5 million in 2.25 years will only triple in the next 4 years.

There’s a whole range of possibilities -

1. eReaders continue their mercurial rise as ‘the device for reading’ and hit 40-50 million a year by 2014.
2. eReaders have a slower growth and are at 20 million units a year by 2014.
3. There’s a stand-off between Tablets and eReaders and eReaders do hit a wall in 2014 and the predicted figure of 14 million.
4. eReaders start doing terribly and never cross 10 million a year.
5. The Press run their voodoo and not a single eReader sells after today and we’re forever stuck at 5 million eReaders in circulation.

The Press and analysts have continuously been predicting the last 3 scenarios – eReaders will stall, eReaders will die out, devices that do more than just read will win.

It’s all based on their cognitive failings – They fail to see that people who read are fundamentally different from them, they don’t recognize the fact that eReaders are for reading and there’s a lot of reading happening all the time, and most of all they refuse to admit that eReaders are better for reading than any other device.

eReaders are going to be huge – a bigger market than Tablets or Netbooks. Perhaps even bigger than laptops. All you have to do is compare them with paper and paper notebooks – That’s their real competition.

Filed under: eBook Reader Devices Tagged: | future of books, future of ereader