Internet retail giant, Amazon, must have been over the moon with the 2009 sales results for its Kindle reader family. The Kindle 2.0 was released in February and, just a few months later in June, Amazon followed up with the launch of the large format Kindle DX. The Kindle quickly became the number one selling product for Amazon - even before the Kindle 2.0 was launched on the worldwide stage in October.
By the end of 2009's festive season, the Kindle had become Amazon's "most gifted" product ever and, on Christmas day, Amazon sold more Kindle books than they did traditional printed volumes. That may very well have been due to all those lucky people who had found a Kindle under their tree on Christmas morning. In all probability, having opened their gift and got the Kindle out of the box, new owners would want to try out their new reader. That would probably have involved connecting to the Amazon website and downloading a Kindle book or two.
Notwithstanding this, higher sales of Kindle books than traditional paper versions is a major milestone for Amazon. There will be some who suggest that this was achieved in a slightly artificial way - but this just underlines what a good fit the Kindle is for Amazon's business model.
Of course, Amazon's competition have been closely following and monitoring their success and putting measures in place to ensure that they too can obtain a share of the nascent market for e-book readers. The list of competitors who are in the process of developing their own new e-book readers is both lengthy and impressive. Samsung, Apple, Microsoft and Sony are just some of the big names who will be going head to head with Amazon in 2010. Barnes and Noble have also launched their own e-book reader - the Nook - and must be considered as a serious player due to their well established book selling pedigree.
Many of the next generation of e-book readers will incorporate features which will make the current Kindle offerings look out of date. Color displays, touch screen functionality and the adoption of a standard e-book reader format which will allow e-books to be transferred across different readers, or even borrowed from digital libraries, are just a few of the options that users can anticipate.
You can be sure that Amazon will not rest on its laurels while their competition enters the market which Amazon has worked so hard to develop. The current Kindles, as innovative as they were just a few short months ago, probably bear little resemblance to what e-book readers will be like in the (very) near future. Amazon probably already has their next generation Kindle under development (the Kindle 4?) and, considering the level of drive and innovation that they have displayed thus far, Amazon will be probably be looking forward to even greater success during 2010. Kindle users can look forward to an updated, enhanced Kindle packed with new features - probably in the first half of 2010.
Check out the amazing Amazon Kindle reader and have a look at the wide range of accessories available from M-Edge to help you customise it.
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