The Wall Street Journal reports that a Credit Suisse analyst predicts that Amazon’s share of the e-book market will fall from 90% to 35% over the next five years, with most of the rest of the market going to Apple and Google.
Of course, an analyst’s predictions and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. There is no reason to expect they have any more accurate crystal balls than the rest of us. Still, Apple and Google are about the only e-book competition in Amazon’s league that has yet materialized, and the market share they pick up will have to come from somewhere.
I read the same piece earlier today and was scratching my head since it makes no sense. Although I believe that Amazon has closer to 80% of the ebook market rather than 90%, there is no way it will drop anywhere near 35%.
Although everyone wants to cite the iPad as the real kindle killer, I’m not buying it. I do expect Apple to sell about 3 Million iPads within a year, and many owners will certainly use it to read some books. But, as I have posted elsewhere, including this blog, I believe that if you survey iPad owners a year from now that they will indicate that they spend no more than 10% of their time using the iPad to read books. if they aren’t reading books on it, they certainly won’t be buying books from the iBook store.
AND, if the Kindle App is allowed on the iPad which now appears confirmed, then I see the iPad as a supplement to a Kindle for reading, and many iPad owners will buy their books from Amazon’s Kindle store and do some reading of them on the iPad.
I think Amazon’s share will be closer to 60% rather than 35% in 5 years time. This article is WAY off base. Another example of mis-informed Kindle bashing.