(
Bob Blandeburgo) Nearly two years after Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:
AMZN)
released its Kindle e-book reader, it appears that digital books will
finally be embraced by consumers previously reluctant to buy a pricey
e-reader device.
Roughly 3 million e-readers will be sold this year, Forrester Research Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR)
said in a recent report that revised a previous estimate of 2 million.
Thirty percent of those sales will occur in November and December,
thanks in part to falling prices, more content availability, better
retail distribution, and plenty of media buzz. Advances in technology will push e-reader sales to 10 million by the end of next year, Forrester says.
"This has grown much faster than any of us ever anticipated," Amazon
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos told The New York Times after his company announced it will start marketing Kindle internationally.
The two other players challenging Amazon's 60% market share are Sony Corp. (NYSE ADR: SNE) and Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS).
Sony, which debuted its first e-reader in 2005, has 35% of the e-reader
market while the remaining 5% belongs to Netherlands-based Irex
Technologies, which partners with Barnes & Noble to sell its
devices.
Barnes & Noble is expected to debut an e-reader as soon as next month, The Wall Street Journal reported. The retailer opened an e-book store earlier this year
that has more than 700,000 titles – twice that of Amazon's – and
includes access to 500,000 public-domain books that it acquired through
a deal with Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG).
Just in time for the holiday season, Amazon dropped Kindle's price
for the second time this year to $259, down $100 from its price a year
ago.
