Comments on: 29 million dedicated e-book readers predicted to ship in 2013: Hype or credible forecast? http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/29-million-dedicated-e-book-readers-predicted-to-ship-in-2013-hype-or-accurate-forecast/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:02:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Felix Torres http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/29-million-dedicated-e-book-readers-predicted-to-ship-in-2013-hype-or-accurate-forecast/comment-page-1/#comment-1128638 Felix Torres Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:44:34 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/08/19/29-million-dedicated-e-book-readers-predicted-to-ship-in-2013-hype-or-accurate-forecast/#comment-1128638 Of course, typos aside, if I think 23 million is too much, 29 is even less likely... Of course, typos aside, if I think 23 million is too much, 29 is even less likely…

]]> By: Felix Torres http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/29-million-dedicated-e-book-readers-predicted-to-ship-in-2013-hype-or-accurate-forecast/comment-page-1/#comment-1128637 Felix Torres Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:41:28 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/08/19/29-million-dedicated-e-book-readers-predicted-to-ship-in-2013-hype-or-accurate-forecast/#comment-1128637 Very interesting article despite the misleading title. They do understand that books are, in fact, very different from music and video, so that lends some credibility to their analysis. Me, I suspect they may--as is typical for emerging technologies--be overly-optimistic in the short-term and overly pesimistic in the longer term. The way I see it: 1- the market for "fiction-readers", the market targetted by Sony and the K2, plus Bookeen, the Hanlin re-sellers, etc, is a good start but it will start to level-out fairly soon. Say in another two years. 2- I am generally skeptical of newspapers and magazines as *drivers* for eReader sales, in the near term, even with subsidized hardware. Too much of the ptential market is going to be cannibalized by cellphones and computer-based reading. 3- The textbook market will be *huge* but I can't see it arriving until the second half of the decade. Mostly because educational bureaucracies are generally conservative; we'll see a few universities start to ramp up in the next five years but the real money is in k-12 and that market isn't opening up soon; the tech just isn't there yet. (Flexible color displays with animation for starters.) So yes, I think 23 million by '13 is too high by about a third. Ten million, though, I can see. 25 million by 2015, possible. 100 million by 2020? Likely. (Possibly pesimistic, though, if anybody ever gets the K-12 readers down to under $100 list.) Just need to remember that PCs sell 270 million-plus *per year*. Given time, eReaders should be able to do at least ten percent of that. ;) Very interesting article despite the misleading title.
They do understand that books are, in fact, very different from music and video, so that lends some credibility to their analysis.
Me, I suspect they may–as is typical for emerging technologies–be overly-optimistic in the short-term and overly pesimistic in the longer term.
The way I see it:
1- the market for “fiction-readers”, the market targetted by Sony and the K2, plus Bookeen, the Hanlin re-sellers, etc, is a good start but it will start to level-out fairly soon. Say in another two years.
2- I am generally skeptical of newspapers and magazines as *drivers* for eReader sales, in the near term, even with subsidized hardware. Too much of the ptential market is going to be cannibalized by cellphones and computer-based reading.
3- The textbook market will be *huge* but I can’t see it arriving until the second half of the decade. Mostly because educational bureaucracies are generally conservative; we’ll see a few universities start to ramp up in the next five years but the real money is in k-12 and that market isn’t opening up soon; the tech just isn’t there yet. (Flexible color displays with animation for starters.)

So yes, I think 23 million by ’13 is too high by about a third. Ten million, though, I can see. 25 million by 2015, possible. 100 million by 2020? Likely. (Possibly pesimistic, though, if anybody ever gets the K-12 readers down to under $100 list.)

Just need to remember that PCs sell 270 million-plus *per year*. Given time, eReaders should be able to do at least ten percent of that. ;)

]]>