MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
July 19 – July 25, 2010 Edition Amazon Says e-Books Now Outsell Print
SEATTLE, WA/AUTHORLINK NEWS/July20, 2010Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement yesterday that e-book sales have outsold printed books for the past three months, and that sales of its Kindle e-reading device had tripled since the company lowered its price to $189 from $259 last month.
The huge sales increase would refute the perception that competitors such as Apples iPad are cutting into Amazons e-reader market.
While Amazon reported the relative increases in device sales each month in the second quarter, both month-over-month and year-over-year, the company did not share actual sales figures. Amazon has never revealed the actual number of devices or e-books sold. The company said it sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it sold. However, printed books also continued to slightly increase.
That is dramatic evidence of how powerful the e-book is now, Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney told the Wall Street Journal in a July 20, 2010 printed article (Page B1). He noted that Amazon is extremely well positioned to take advantage of the growing market awareness created in part by Apples iPad.
Many publishers are concerned over e-book growth will impact printed sales but most say it is too early to prove any connectiongood or badbetween growth in e-books and growth or decline in trade sales.
Amazons statistics also suggest that the company is the dominant seller of e-books. The company said that of the 1.14 milion James Patterson e-books sold as of July 6, nearly 868,000 were from Amazon.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs had claimed in June that Apples iBookstore, launched in April, had already captured 20% of the market, the Wall Street Journal article reported.
