Apple Beating Kindle For E-books In UK, At Least
These questions are difficult to answer, given that the publishing industry and particularly Amazon doesnt like to share numbers. Even Apple, which jealously guards information, will point out unit sales, but Amazon doesnt break those figures out. The suspicion among skeptical observers (and I would classify myself as one) is that since Amazon only tells us things that make it sound incredibly successful, it might be keeping some unpleasant information away from prying eyes.
So to find out more, I talked Jo Henry, the managing director of UK-based Book Marketing Ltd, a research firm that does field research and surveys to understand public book consumption habits. According to data her company collected on e-book purchasing, Apples iOS products are outperforming the Kindle for reading in the UK.
The figures, taken from BMLs research in Britain and from parent company Bowkers PubTrack Consumer survey in the U.S., compares the growth curve of American e-book habits with those in the UK. The industry generally seems to believe that British adoption is around 18 months behind the U.S. market: the numbers bear that out, at least in part.
The data shows that Kindle use rocketed in the U.S. between November 2009 and November 2010. Devices using iOS (ie iPhone, iPad and iPod) c! apture a significant portion of the market, followed by generic smartphones, Sony and Barnes & Nobles Nook.
(It may seem a little perverse that computer reading has increased at the same time, but the rising tide of e-book releases make it easier than ever to do this. A lot of e-book reading, Henry suggested, is done at work).
In the UK, however, you can see that adoption is some way behind: computer reading is still by far and away the most popular method, the Kindle ranks as highly as the iPad, and iOS devices in general scoop up more than twice as much share as Amazon does.
Its not clear whether the market will stay this way, but its going to be interesting to see how the war between the two heats up (particularly given their battle over subscriptions)
So thats how they read. But who is doing the reading?
Well, in the United States, the average e-book buyer seems to have changed quite a lot over the past couple of years. They are now beginning to resemble the print buyer: skewed toward older, female and slightly less-well educated consumers.
In Britain, the average e-book purchaser still fits the pattern of an early adopter, more or less: they are younger, significantly more likely to be male than female, and with a higher education level and income. That seems to fit the idea that this is still a nascent market outside north America, yet to really break into the mainstream.
So, that leaves some questions for both countries.
Will e-book adoption outside the U.S. follow the same pattern as inside? Will other countries fall behind the Kindle in the same way as the home market? Theres some evidence to indicate that the 18 month gap could quickly reduce once e-book reading begins to pick up. After all in Europe, winning brands tend to dominate more than across the Atlantic: Googles market share is significantly higher than in the U.S., for example.
Does this mean the Kindle is just waiting to make a major breakthrough that will suddenly catapult it way beyond its rivals? Given that Barnes & Noble has not released the Nook to the international market, is there more room for Sony and Apple to step into the breach? BML is currently compiling data from the holiday period, which should make good reading.
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