E-Book Readers Predicted To Sell Well This Xmas

It looks like electronic book readers – such as the Amazon Kindle reader or the Sony Daily Edition reader - could be one of the hottest gifts this year. Analysts will be watching closely to see if these devices gain iPod status soon.

Falling prices and an ever expanding library of digital books to read on the devices are pushing demand for these readers higher. The Amazon store alone has in excess of 300,000 books for the Kindle and Sony has partnered with Google to make the search engine giant’s huge library of public domain electronic books available to users of the Sony reader series.

Currently the devices appeal mainly to book lovers. However, many industry analysts see them as merely the prototype for future personal mobile devices which will have much more functionality. Future generations of these readers are expected to have the video capability and to allow users to surf the internet whilst out and about.

Analysts are carefully scrutinising the number of readers sold. The sales volume will be used to predict future demand for anticipated multimedia tablet PCs, which Apple and other manufacturers are thought to be working on. Such devices could change the marketplace yet again.

ISuppli predicts that global sales of e-book readers will top 5 million units in 2009. In 2008 about 1 million devices were shipped. That’s a huge increase, but sales volume is still low relatively speaking. As a comparative measure, around about 225 million portable music players will be sold in 2009 (according to research firm In-Stat).

The potential for growth is very real and consumer demand is increasing exponentially. A poll by Retrevo – a consumer electronics website – suggested that e-book readers were ahead of MP3 players on many people’s holiday wishlist for this year. 20 percent of respondents said that they were planning to buy an e-book reader in the near future.

Right now the Amazon Kindle is dominating the market. It makes up an estimated 60% of the U.S. market. The Kindle 2 has a selling price of 9. It has been estimated that it costs Amazon around 6 to produce – which leaves them with a good profit. However, the market is becoming more crowded by the day. Sony has been adding new models and iRex will also be launching a new reader very soon. Asus, the company which revolutionised the notebook market is also reported to be planning a reader launch, possibly as early as late 2009.

So, Christmas sales figures will be closely scrutinised and we might expect to see the first wave of personal electronic tablet PCs in 2010 – assuming good e-book reader sales (which seems like a safe bet).