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September 11, 2009 12:31 PM PDT

E-book readers still owned by small niche

by Lance Whitney
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The tech industry buzzes a lot about e-book readers. But how widely are they actually used?

Among 1,529 consumers who responded to a July 2009 questionnaire from research firm In-Stat, only 5.8 percent currently own an e-book reader. And only 11 percent of those questioned said they planned to buy one in the next 12 months, according to the In-Stat report released this week.

Those low results may be even more significant given that In-Stat's survey audience consisted of high-end consumers who typically adopt new technology earlier than the general public.

Another study released last week by Forrester discovered that consumers find e-book readers much too expensive. Extrapolating from the 4,706 U.S. consumers questioned, Forrester found that almost 65 percent of U.S. adults online would consider a price of $98 or less too expensive for an e-book reader but would still purchase one.

Fewer than 20 percent said $99 to $148 was too pricey for a reader though they would still buy one, while 14 percent said the same about readers in the $149 to $198 range.

Those results are significant in a market where Amazon's least expensive Kindle sells for $299, even after a recent price cut, and Sony's less-pricey Pocket edition Reader sells for $199.

In-Stat's survey found a greater tolerance for high prices. Among its audience, 40 percent of potential buyers would pay $200 to $299 for a reader, 29 percent would pay $100 to $199, and 13.6 percent would pay less than $100.

(Credit: In-Stat)

Among current users of e-book readers, In-Stat found the number one requested feature is e-mail. Potential buyers cited better battery life and Internet connectivity as the two most important factors in persuading them to buy a reader.

Of the number of e-book users questioned in the In-Stat survey, more than 58 percent own the Amazon Kindle, while 9 percent use Sony's Reader. Around 45.5 percent of them spend between $9 and $20 a month on e-books.

In its report, Forrester predicted that 2 million U.S. consumers will buy an e-reader this year, in addition to the 1 million who bought one in 2008.

Forrester's blog dissected the meaning of its survey: "The maximum addressable market for eReaders as they are currently priced is substantial--but to reach the largest market possible, the prices will need to come way down. And even then, eReaders are never going to be as big a market as MP3 players, which 110 million US consumers own."

Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) Showing 1 of 2 pages (34 Comments)
by jag0 September 11, 2009 12:37 PM PDT
Umm...duh?
Reply to this comment
by rdupuy11 September 11, 2009 12:56 PM PDT
1 million bought 2008...doubling to 2 million this year...doubling again next year....

Prices high, dropping each year....

which sounds like the adoption curve you see with technology, but this was spun as something other.

I agree, the price, or rather perceived price needs to drop down to $99 or $0, with 2 year contract...its easy to see it dropping that low, if they tweak the model a bit.
Reply to this comment
by Random_Walk September 12, 2009 9:34 AM PDT
"contract"?

Screw that. I can buy books now, as many as I want, and own them once and forever. I seriously would not want something as important as books to be locked onto a device that requires electricity, a "contract", and (more often than not) DRM.

As it is now? Once I buy a paper book, I own it. Thanks to Amazon, that's not true with eBooks.

Literacy is the key to our civilization, and I'll be damned if I'd ever want to see that handed over to any single (or group of) corporation's whims.
by 1812dave September 11, 2009 12:58 PM PDT
Give it a backlit screen, make it color, make it cheaper, and THEN, I MIGHT think about it. For now, my Touch works great for e-books. Kindlers are always whining about how LCD screens bother the eyes. I say that's BALONEY. I can read for hours on my Touch without eyestrain. My wife also reads on her Touch and likewise, has no issues with her eyes. I'm 61 and she is 58. Kindlers are a bit cranky in discussions of color and backlights, IMO because they got taken and so they want to defend their purchase, no matter what the facts are. Try reading a book on photography in MONOCHROME. LOL!!
Reply to this comment
by ddesy September 11, 2009 1:19 PM PDT
I don't think the backlight issue is something where people are just defending their purchases at all. I find the screens on existing e-Book readers far more pleasing than anything backlit. They read much more like paper books than computer monitors, and that is precisely the reason that many people like them.

Price does remain an issue, however.
by svgtom September 12, 2009 10:58 AM PDT
Kindlers are not cranky when it comes to color and backlighting. Most would like color however the technology isn't there yet to make it cost efficient. As far as backlighting, it just doesn't work very well with E-ink technology as Sony found out with one of their readers. As a Kindle owner I don't feel I was taken. I spent some considerable time reading on a friend's T-Mobile G1, and while it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, I much prefer reading on my Kindle.
by ThePrairiePrankster September 11, 2009 1:29 PM PDT
I don't read enough books annually to justify paying more than $25 for a locked down device that does not allow me to transfer content. I might pay $50 for a device that allows me to move the content I pay for to another device. If I had kids in school, I could see the value of even a device costing $100 but the current prices are too high for me to consider a single purpose reading device with locked down content that I paid for.
Reply to this comment
by Inconnux September 11, 2009 1:33 PM PDT
When they hit around $50 I "MIGHT" consider one. Until then my laptop and Palm work just fine. I could buy a decent netbook that has 100x the functionality as the useless DRM infested Kindle.
Reply to this comment
by Chameleon81 September 11, 2009 2:03 PM PDT
50 dollars?Are you joking? Bluetooth mouses are between 30-50 dollars. When it reaches between 100-150 many people buy it. Sony introduced a new one with annotation and notetaking capabilities for 249 sth dollars. IF it was 150 I would immediately buy it.
by Inconnux September 16, 2009 8:14 PM PDT
considering that the kindle is essentially a BLACK AND WHITE text reader... $50 is being generous.
by Dust_Puppy September 11, 2009 1:53 PM PDT
Hell, if Amazon would just bundle all of Douglas Adams stuff in a box set I'd consider one.

Put (in big friendly letters) "Don't Panic" on the back of a kindle2 and I'd buy it as is ;)

(wanders off humming some Pink Floyd)
Reply to this comment
by ferricoxide September 11, 2009 2:15 PM PDT
I like the idea of E-book readers, it's just the implementation that sucks. The prospect of buying a reader that only lets me read books from one library and needing different readers to be able to use books in another library, makes them unappealing. Add in that your readers' contents can be remotely manipulated (titles revoked/removed or, conceivably, edited) makes it a no-go, for me. Those factors are *both* independent of the currently high prices for the devices.
Reply to this comment
by Police_States_of_America September 11, 2009 2:20 PM PDT
call me when the lockin/drm is over with
Reply to this comment
by Philips September 11, 2009 2:24 PM PDT
e-readers need to standardize on a file formats they should support. PDF, DjVu, TXT and HTML are must. That's for me requirement #1. I do not like all the conversion tools many of the readers require.

Also feature set isn't that stable enough and differs from device to device. One device has buttons in layout I like, but lacks features. Another has features I like, but has usability problems. There are still devices not supporting landscape orientation. Problems with zoom and text reflow also persist.

Market is immature, because competition right now goes like "look! we got that feature right!!" while instead it should be concentrated on the extras.

As long as core functionality isn't settled and market matured, I wouldn't buy e-reader - especially at the prices they ask.
Reply to this comment
by -fjtorres- September 11, 2009 2:30 PM PDT
Asking early tech adopters is asking the wrong people.
Techies are not at the top of thevrrafing curve, the liberal arts types are.
Ebook readers are deplying *despite* the technology in the current gadgets, not because of it.
Its not about the tech but rather about the books.
Kindle rules biggest it has the best bookstore with the best prices, just as iPpds rule bevause of iTunes and the iTunes catalog.
Looking at the tech and trying to appeal to techies is simply a distraction.
Reply to this comment
by man_in_la2000 September 12, 2009 12:56 AM PDT
Maybe you should understand first what a hype cycle is and who adopts it then ranting about 'liberal arts types'. The only reason ipod and kindle are working is because the seamless integration with technology. the ebooks and readers have been around for decades without any success. Every success in recent years is about technology and not about whatever it brings to table. All early adopters are tech because all the liberal art types are too stupid to press the buttons.
by baconstang September 11, 2009 3:27 PM PDT
I hope they are not comparing readers to iPods. The pool of potential reader buyers is probably less than 10% of the pool of 'MP3' buyers. The folks that read enough to justify buying a reader will probably buy one in the first 3 years, after that not much.
Reply to this comment
by JoelR September 11, 2009 4:00 PM PDT
The real problem is not the cost of the reader. It is the cost of the e-books themselves and the overly restrictive license.
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by eberry5134 September 11, 2009 4:26 PM PDT
I have two, a Kindle and a Sony and I love them both!!
Reply to this comment
by 1812dave September 12, 2009 10:18 AM PDT
Whoopee do for you--you've got enough money to splurge on one-trick pony, overpriced, early adopter toys. The vast majority of consumers are not buying e-book readers yet as they don't see the value in such purchases.
by gwailo247 September 11, 2009 5:22 PM PDT
So you want me to pay almost full price for an e-book as for a "analog" book, and on top of that I have to spend several hundred dollars on a device to do so?

Um....no?
Reply to this comment
by john94857 September 11, 2009 6:10 PM PDT
Gotta love this new and developing part of technology and market. I have to say though, that if you are willing to look around on Amazon to get free ebooks (they do have a lot of them), Kindle kind of pays for itself if you happen to like those books.

Having said that, the reason I hesitate to get a Kindle is due to the closed eco-system of the Kindle system, which makes Amazon the gatekeeper in that case. That is the reason I am happy to see so much competition in the devices and ways to access ebooks.

An irony to the close ecosystem of Kindle is that Amazon has an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free with a large selection and often good prices. Yet that is a completely open format, which is preferrable.

On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon.

It is at http://www.uberi.com

Maybe someone will find it useful too. While you are there, I would suggest checking out the "Amazon Filler Item" among other things there when you get a chance. It's quite amusing.
Reply to this comment
by popa pineapple September 11, 2009 7:54 PM PDT
This article is misleading. Remember that a home computer is also an e-book reader. You can't make judgments about the impact of e-books without including the first and most common platform. It''s not just will I buy an e-book that's the question; it's when will I switch from reading electronic text from my home computer to reading it on an e-book. It's the intent of the consumer who are already reading text on a screen, not the number of e-book platforms sold that's the real issue here.
Reply to this comment
by Understarsidream September 11, 2009 8:54 PM PDT
I'm sorry but I'm still not interested since you're not buying a book - you're buying a license to access a computer file. And that access is not guaranteed at all if you see how Amazon handled the recent debacle with deleting books that had been bought and paid for.

If I got to the local used book store the three hundred dollars I would spend on an e-reader I could get hundreds of used books when I look at trading them back in. I can also give them away - something forbidden under any current e-reader format.
Reply to this comment
by Chameleon81 September 12, 2009 2:08 AM PDT
Amazon is not the only player on this field. You can have other devices where you can read pdf word files ....
by CyberShepherd September 12, 2009 9:15 AM PDT
When you consider the price of paperbacks or hardbacks and the availability of books through libraries, one has to ask the question - WHY??????????? I ruined my eyes squinting at a 9-inch Macintosh screen, why would I ever want a Kindle or Sony unless they are free. You still have to pay for the e-books. What a useless gimmick.
Reply to this comment
by 1812dave September 12, 2009 10:22 AM PDT
To play devil's advocate, I've read some free Kindle and other e-book format books, of which there are MANY. Google to see how many free e-books are available currently--it's amazing. I've only purchased one Kindle book so far, for my Touch. I am NOT a Kindle fan by any stretch of the imagination and I used to spar with the uptight Kindlers at the Amazon site but their rabid views got in the way of any meaningful discussions.
by moviegeek65 September 12, 2009 9:48 AM PDT
I will buy e-books when they come in PDF format so I can read them on my laptop or save them on a CD, Why would I buy a device that is expensive and I can't save a book?
Reply to this comment
by svgtom September 12, 2009 11:08 AM PDT
Slightly OT and just to make a clarification, every Ebook reader has the capability to display public domain books which are free of cost and DRM free. There are several websites where you can even download them in your preferred reader's format. Although I have purchased some books from the Kindle store, my main reason for getting one was so that I could read public domain books.
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