Remote Control Toys

The organisers of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, being held in Las Vegas have, for the first time ever set aside a dedicated area for e-book readers. Not without some justification – there are at least two dozen different companies displaying e-book readers at the show.

The increased level of awareness, both from the public and from electronics manufacturers is no big surprise. After all, 2009 was a bumper year for e-book readers. All the signs are that 2010 will be even better.

There’s little doubt that a great deal of the credit for this heightened awareness of e-book readers in 2009 should be given to the Amazon Kindle reader. The Kindle 2.0 launch in February, quickly supported by the launch of the larger DX version in June, created a great deal of publicity for e-book readers as a whole and for the Kindle in particular.

The Kindle quickly became Amazon’s number one selling product and, over the 2009 Christmas period, the Kindle became Amazon’s most gifted product ever. Kindle book sales had been running at 35% of all book sales (where a Kindle edition existed). On Christmas day 2009, for the first time ever, Amazon sold more Kindle books than traditional books.

The market for both e-book readers and e-books had been firmly established and now seems set to take off. At this time, Amazon has 60% of the American market and Sony has 35%. Obviously there are many of other manufacturers who want to establish a presence in this market. On the face of it, they will have a hard time considering Amazon’s dominance – but the market is new and developing rapidly. Exponential growth looks very likely in the short term and the right product at the right time could rewrite the rules in an instant.

Apart from electronics manufacturers, there are other parties who have a vested interest in the growth and development of the e-book reader market. Third party manufacturers who make a variety of accessories – reading lights (the displays of e-book readers are not back-lit),chargers, covers, screen protectors etc. – also stand to benefit from a market that, until very recently, simply did not exist. At the moment, Kindle accessories are, understandably, dominant, but as new readers begin to increase their volume of sales these will, almost certainly, also be catered for.

This is going to be a very successful year both for e-book readers and e-books. Next year’s Consumer Electronics shows will certainly incorporate a separate e-book reader section – but it may be somewhat increased in size compared with this year.