This was the eReading market in 2010

Here is an old piece of text about the eReading market that I had written for my future eBook.

Of course, this market changes so quickly, most of the elements have become irrelevant.

I post it here for the sake of memory...

For new eReading Market news look at http://delicious.com/appepaper/business





2010 seems to be an important year for the “eReader” market.

While ePaper was hot at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, on January 27th Apple announced the iPad which is seen as a serious opponent to Amazon's Kindle. As soon as it started shipping the iPad exceeded sales expectations : 3 million iPads were sold in 80 days.

If we consider the ePaper market only, the perspectives are very promising. Prime View International (PVI) chairman Scott Liu has said he expects global e-book reader shipments in 2010 will have a chance to surpass 10 million since over 50 new vendors are expected to launch e-book devices this year (http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100204PD218.html).

Companies investing in eReaders like Amazon have found their market, according to famous TechCrunch blog,

“Millions of people now own Kindles,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com .... We’ve checked with our sources, who have been amazingly accurate on the number of Kindle’s sold over the last couple of years. The total number of all types of Kindles out there in users hands hit 3 million sometime in December (2009), says a source close to Amazon.. " (http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/29/3-million-amazon-kindles-sold-apparently/).

Fujio Noguchi, who supervises Sony's e-book business as a deputy president of the Digital Reading Business Division of Sony Electronics Inc, took the podium at a press conference in the first half of January 2010 and answered reporters' questions (http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20100128/179731/).

Q: How is the sales of the e-book reader "Reader"?

Noguchi: It is selling very well. Actually, it became the best seller for the Sony Style, our (online) outlet store in the US. Its sales volume quadrupled on a year-over-year basis.

Many people bought it as a Christmas present. And the servers for the Sony Style went down because too many people tried to register on the Web site Dec 25, 2009.

“Displaybank projects the e-Paper market to grow from US$70 million in 2008 to US$2.1 billion in 2015 and US$7 billion by 2020 -- representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 47%. Displaybank also projects the e-Book market to comprise 50% of the total e-Paper market during that same period -- growing from US$35 million in 2008 to US$1.1 billion in 2015 and US$3.4 billion by 2020 -- with the greatest regional demand coming from the US.” (http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090522/170565/).

In July, Amazon Amazon.com said that sales of its electronic Kindle books are outselling hardcover books.