Gingersnap
07-20-2010, 11:46 AM
Amazon Says E-Book Sales Outpace Hardcovers
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER And JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG
Amazon.com Inc. said it reached a milestone, selling more e-books than hardbacks over the past three months.
But publishers said it is still too early to gauge for the entire industry whether the growth of e-books is cannibalizing sales of paperback books, a huge and crucial market.
Rex Crum talks to Dan Gallagher about Amazon.com's upbeat news for the e-reader market. The company is expected to report a double-digit gain in sales when it reports quarterly earnings after the bell Thursday.
In a statement Monday, Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos, also countered the perception that sales of the company's Kindle e-reading device had suffered due to competition from other devices, such as Apple Inc.'s iPad.
He said the growth rate of Kindle device sales had "reached a tipping point," having tripled since the company lowered its price to $189 from $259 last month, following a similar move by competitor Barnes & Noble Inc. to cut the price on its Nook e-reader.
Amazon said Kindle device sales accelerated each month in the second quarter—both on a sequential month-over-month basis and on a year-over-year basis. But the statistics that Amazon shared were all relative—it didn't share actual sales figures. The company has never said how many Kindle devices or e-books it has sold.
Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain retailer, also has "seen a big uptick" since it cut the price of its Nook e-reader, a spokeswoman said.
Sony Corp., too, said that its sales of e-books were growing steadily, while second-quarter sales of its e-reading devices were about triple the level a year earlier.
Amazon painted a picture of accelerating growth in sales of e-books, which can be read on the Kindle and through software on a host of other devices, including Apple's iPad and iPhone. The figures don't include free e-books.
Over the past month, the Seattle retailer sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it sold, it said.
Interesting.
WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720504575377472723652734.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories)
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER And JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG
Amazon.com Inc. said it reached a milestone, selling more e-books than hardbacks over the past three months.
But publishers said it is still too early to gauge for the entire industry whether the growth of e-books is cannibalizing sales of paperback books, a huge and crucial market.
Rex Crum talks to Dan Gallagher about Amazon.com's upbeat news for the e-reader market. The company is expected to report a double-digit gain in sales when it reports quarterly earnings after the bell Thursday.
In a statement Monday, Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos, also countered the perception that sales of the company's Kindle e-reading device had suffered due to competition from other devices, such as Apple Inc.'s iPad.
He said the growth rate of Kindle device sales had "reached a tipping point," having tripled since the company lowered its price to $189 from $259 last month, following a similar move by competitor Barnes & Noble Inc. to cut the price on its Nook e-reader.
Amazon said Kindle device sales accelerated each month in the second quarter—both on a sequential month-over-month basis and on a year-over-year basis. But the statistics that Amazon shared were all relative—it didn't share actual sales figures. The company has never said how many Kindle devices or e-books it has sold.
Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain retailer, also has "seen a big uptick" since it cut the price of its Nook e-reader, a spokeswoman said.
Sony Corp., too, said that its sales of e-books were growing steadily, while second-quarter sales of its e-reading devices were about triple the level a year earlier.
Amazon painted a picture of accelerating growth in sales of e-books, which can be read on the Kindle and through software on a host of other devices, including Apple's iPad and iPhone. The figures don't include free e-books.
Over the past month, the Seattle retailer sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it sold, it said.
Interesting.
WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720504575377472723652734.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories)