It seems highly probable that, when the sales returns are tallied up at the end of the 2010 festive season, it will prove to have been another record breaking year for Amazon's flagship e-book reader. Despite numerous predictions of the Kindle's impending demise as a result of the release of the Apple iPad, Amazon's top selling ebook reader just seems to go from strength to strength.
Even without the introduction of a color screen, the release of the Kindle 3 in the autumn of 2010 opened the gap between the Kindle and the chasing pack even further. Over and above a variety of technical improvements, which included a smaller, lighter case, larger memory capacity (sufficient for up to 3,500 books) and an improved contrast display, an entry level WiFi only Kindle model was introduced.
The entry level Kindle sells for just $ 139 - less than a third of the price of the most basic iPad. The 3G plus WiFi model sells for $ 189 - still a long way below the price of even the entry level iPad. The fact that there are no monthly download fees associated with the Kindle remains a big selling point of course.
Another key feature of the Kindle has always been the enormous collection of Kindle books available for download from the Amazon website. Currently there are over 750,000 Kindle books for sale on the Amazon Kindle store. In addition to the paid Kindle books, there are currently a further 1.8 million books published prior to 1923 and which are now out of copyright - including many well known classics - which are available for free download.
Many potential e-book reader purchasers are concerned about being tied to a particular brand of reader. They feel that having bought a lot of e-books in a particular format, they will be unable to transfer their books should they wish to switch to another e-book reader later.
Amazon have tackled this issue, rather deftly, by releasing a large number of apps which let users read Kindle books on a whole host of different devices. Currently, there are free Kindle apps for the PC, the Mac, the iPad, the iPhone, the Blackberry smart phone, the Windows phone and any device which uses the Android operating system. It's a very smart strategy for Amazon. In addition to allaying the fears regarding the transfer of books, every single one of these apps acts as an additonal point of sale for Kindle books. Around about 20% of Kindle book sales are attributed to non-Kindle hardware at this time. That percentage will probably continue to grow in future.
As improbable as it may have appeared at some points throughout the year, 2010 has seen the Kindle reinforce its market dominance even further. The only credible competition to the Kindle comes from a tablet computer which costs more than three times as much as the Kindle - and that tells a story in itself. The Kindle looks like maintaining its dominant position in the e-book market into 2011 and beyond.
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