Uh oh, Amazon…hope you’re sitting down for this one. Looks like a survey of future ebook buyers shows everyone’s waiting on the iPad. According to Changewave, specifically 40% of prospective ebookers are marking April 3rd on their calendars. The real bad news, though, is for Barnes and Noble and Sony. At least Amazon claimed 28% of potential future sales. Poor B&N and Sony are only picking up a 6% and 1% share, respectively.
(Image courtesy Investors.com)
So what’s going on with these numbers? Has Apple pre-emptively won the ebook war? Maybe not…let’s put some context into this.
For one, the iPad has the biggest household name of all these devices. It’s been hyped beyond belief, and it’s the item everyone has been waiting to see for months. So when you poll people about “ebook readers”, everyone is waiting to see what the most anticipated device out there is going to look like!
Second, no device has been rumored or released from any of the major ebook manufacturers. Sure, fans of eInk are talking about the Pocketbook 360, or the Cybook Opus, but those are not everyday names. The ones that have instant recognition are B&N, Amazon and Sony, and they all released their big stuff before the holidays. The nook is back in stock, but it was already out/buzzed about for quite some in the fall. It’s old news in the tech world. Sony’s Daily Edition is their newest device, and it has already been out for over a month (in addition to having been pre-announced last fall). And the Kindle 2 is over a year old, while the Kindle DX is almost a year old!
And the real wildcard in this is that the iPad is not the only tablet coming out this year. Some are smaller, like the upcoming Archos tablets, some run Windows like the HP Slate. Don’t forget about that big 25% to unsure/other…that could be any of the upcoming tablets, an eInk device, an iPad…there’s a lot coming down the pike.
The iPad has clearly captured public attention. But that does not mean it is the only game in town. If anything, at over a year old, the Kindle has been incredibly impressive at pulling a 28%. With such small awareness for the nook and the Sony Reader, though, this is starting to look like a two-horse race. The next few months are going to get VERY interesting!
Via e-ink info
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