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
Carly-
I totally agree that "the next few months are going to get very interesting" and I think it is uncler exactly how things are going to shake out but…
What is amazing to me is that Sony had a decent eReader years ago and are completely irrelevant in this discussion now. I had one of their first and generation readers and they were actually pretty decent. But limited and pricey books combined with the difficulty of geting and using books on them (the original software was weak at best) has led them to YET ANOTHER TIME they could have dominated but don't.
The wildcard is, as you point out, the other tablets coming out this year. We've seen some (the current MIDs are Meh, the Archos tablet… fail! and the JooJoo is, I suspect, dead on arrival) but the real question are the few that we know are coming but don't know much about yet. They could be players.
Then again, the iPad launches with a huge number of apps which, hile they won't look great "pixel doubled" will work and a few like Evernote that will launch with it. It has the iTune's ecosystem which, love it or hate it, brings simple organization to media, apps and now books. You can't beat that. If Apple stops pulling some of the lame-brained arrogant stunts they have tried in recent months I suspect the iPad will be unstoppable.
Should Amazon be sweating… in a word- YES.
Very true about Sony. I try not to kick them TOO much, but wow did they fail to take advantage of their position.
I think Amazon will drop prices right before April 3rd…I could see them dropping the price of a K2 and a KDX the week before and offering free overnight shipping, just to tempt any on the fence buyers.
The poll is misleading… of course everyone wants a iPad since it's not released. All the other products are already released. If you want an Kindle, Nook, Sony reader you can go to the store or order online right now and get it in a couple of days. All Amazon has to do is price drop the Kindle 2 and DX and more people will buy it. The iPad is still too expensive for most.