E-books are a billion dollar business. In fact, it is expected in 2015 e-book sales to reach $3 billion in sales. With this huge interest in ebooks, it would be smart for Amazon to give away the Kindle.
Currently (March 2011) Amazon holds 47% of the ebook marketplace; Apple, though more than an e-reader (an therefore not a fair comparison) holds 32%, with Barnes and Nobel and the Nook below 5% each.
E-books are revolutionizing the publishing industry and reader preferences, and Amazon might be in a unique position to hasten that change — if they decide to start giving away their popular Kindle e-reader for free, according to a recent post by Amy Gahran on CNN.com.
Back in October 2009, blogger John Walkenbach noticed that the Kindle price — currently $139 — was falling steadily. By June 2010 this rate was so consistent that he projected that by November 2011 the Kindle price should be $0. Last summer, author Kevin Kelly asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos about this projection.
According to Kelly, Bezos “merely smiled and said, ‘Oh, you noticed that!’ And then smiled again.”
In a way, Amazon has already been giving away Kindles for a while — in the form of the free Kindle smartphone, tablet, and computer apps. Right now, about 6 million U.S. adults own e-readers — but this field is getting much more crowded.
The average e-book reader consumes 41% of books in digital form. Offering a free Kindle appears to be a potentially savvy move. In fact, some banks have already started giving away Kindles to customers.
I would personally like to see free e-reader devices if they worked with library e-book lending programs, using the open e-book formats such as .mobi and .pdf. This step would increase access to books for youths, seniors and low-income communities.
Though students search the library catalog form computer terminals, they still must “go to the shelves to get their books.” Perhaps free e-readers could make libraries available everywhere and open all the time.
Maybe Amazon and Apple wouldn’t like that avenue, but if the e-book industry continues to grow, perhaps they won’t care.
Resource
CNN.com: Why Amazon would be smart to give away the Kindle
