Amazon Make The Most Of The Kindle’s Leading Position

February 1st, 2010 | Uncategorized

Amazon’s Kindle book reader product for Amazon. Considering that Amazon has, in the perception of the buying public, a very strong link with both electronics and books the Kindle is a great fit for Amazon’s business model.

During the course of 2009, e-book readers in general, and especially the Kindle, became the hot “must have” gadgets of the year. It’s predicted that sales will keep growing at a very rapid rate throughout 2010. The market is still very new and is changing and developing at lightning speed.

Right now, the Kindle is way out in front. It currently has a 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market. Sony is in second place with a smaller but nonetheless creditable 35% market share. There is a long list of competing manufacturers who have now developed e-book readers of their own in order to get a slice of the pie in what is forecast to become a large and lucrative market.

In a way, it’s a back-handed compliment to Amazon that almost every new e-book reader that displays and potential is immediately dubbed the “Kindle Killer”. However, considering the fact that the Kindle is now Amazon’s number one selling item, you can be sure that Amazon will be fighting tooth and nail to see off challengers for the top slot.
Amazon has responded to growing competition by lowering the ticket price of the Kindle 2.0 by $ 100 from its February launch price to $ 259. The price of the Kindle DX, which probably has a little less competition just at the moment, remains unchanged. There have also been firmware updates, including the addition of pdf support and extended battery life, among others.

Amazon has also now released both the Kindle 2.0 and the DX in over 100 countries globally. In fact, Amazon could probably sell Kindles in the States as fast as it could manufacture them – but establishing an international Kindle presence is a wise long term strategy for Amazon.

In addition to developing the Kindle reader itself and expanding into new markets, Amazon continues to expand the choice of Kindle books available on its website. There are currently more than 400,000 titles available – and this number is increasing at an average rate of over 500 a day.

So, even although there are a lot of manufacturers frantically developing e-book readers in order to grab a share of the market, Amazon is probably quietly confident. Rather than simply focusing on the development of the hardware itself, Amazon is advancing on a broad front. They are developing the existing Kindle, adjusting prices, expanding their market, increasing the choice of available books and generally capitalising on their dominant market position. When they decide to launch the Kindle 4 – during the course of 2010 most likely – they will simply consolidate their leadership position even more.