Apple iPad stealing Amazon Kindle sales?

[Derrick]

Apple iPad eating away at Amazon Kindle sales?

Amazon’s budget tablet may be under pressure following an iPad 2 price cut...

 

[Fudzy]

I'd start packing up when Apple launch a the iPad Mini.

 

[Crusader]

They should make a distinction between the Kindle Fire and the regular Kindles. People who buy an eInk Kindle wouldn't necessarily even consider going for a tablet, since they want a dedicated reading device without the distractions of a tablet.

 

[Terencek]

This is very misleading for anyone who doesn't know better. The comparison is between the iPad and the $199 Kindle Fire (tablet), NOT the standard ($79 +) Kindle e-reader, which continues to outsell all the opposition in droves.

 

[bridgetroll]

Kindle books have become very overpriced. On new books they now cost more than the paperback version from amazon. Also the fire isn't available in many places and there is no 10 inch version yet.

Amazon deserves the pain its getting.

 

[AfricanTech]

As I discovered to my chagrin this morning, the downside to reading on a tablet is that you tend to forget how heavy it is - serious wrist strain this morning - won't make that mistake again - mobile reading on Kindle dammit!

 

[MattyW]

Kindle books have become very overpriced. On new books they now cost more than the paperback version from amazon. Also the fire isn't available in many places and there is no 10 inch version yet.

Amazon deserves the pain its getting.

Kindle books have become overpriced mainly because apple and the top five publishers colluded to push the price of e books up {amazon was often selling e books below cost something the publishers didn't like} and apple and the 5 publishers have subsequently been sued by the DOJ, EU and are facing a civil suit in Canada.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/11/apple-accused-fixing-prices-ebooks

As i understand it the kindle fire was never meant to be released outside the US {through i'm not sure of this}...

 

[Crusader]

That's right. The Kindle Fire is more aimed as a content delivery system for Amazon's streaming video service which is only available in the US.

 

[Sherbang]

Kindle books have become very overpriced. On new books they now cost more than the paperback version from amazon. Also the fire isn't available in many places and there is no 10 inch version yet.

Amazon deserves the pain its getting.

Actually, it's not Amazon that sets the prices, it's the publishers.

There is a court case on in the States now, the US government has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and publishers over electronic-book pricing, saying they conspired to limit competition.

NEW YORK: Apple Inc wants to go to trial to defend itself against US government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the Silicon Valley giant said in court on Wednesday.

Two publishers took a similar stance in the first hearing in Manhattan federal court since the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice last week accused Apple and five publishers of colluding to break up Amazon.com's low-cost dominance of the digital book market.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiat...t/31367383_1_verlagsgruppe-georg-e-book-apple

Edit: I see this point was raised already while I was distractedly typing my response

 

[cerebus]

Actually, it's not Amazon that sets the prices, it's the publishers.

There is a court case on in the States now, the US government has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and publishers over electronic-book pricing, saying they conspired to limit competition.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiat...t/31367383_1_verlagsgruppe-georg-e-book-apple

1) It's not just the iPad2 that's going to hurt KF sales. There are some very decent Android tabs now at the $250 most notably the Tab 7.0 Plus. KF is a very poor quality tablet from a UX pov - I have one so I know.
2) That Federal lawsuit was a terrible judicial decision. Amazon's pricing tactics should have come under equal scrutiny, they are far more opaque than Apple or any other publisher in my view. They're the ones holding a monopoly stranglehold on the publishing industry and this decision allows them to continue doing so for the next five years, while Barnes & Noble et al are unable to compete at their pricing game.
3) It is not correct that Amazon doesn't sell the prices. Where publishers set a given price, it's common for Amazon to undercut it and simply reimburse the publisher - for what reason, I can't imagine. See their listing of the Hunger Games - $4 below the publisher price.
4) There is some evidence that Kindle e-ink readers are hardly selling at all now due to Kindle Fire cannibalisation.

 

[Crusader]

Amazon are actually digging their own grave with the battle against the publishers. Tor/Forge one of the largest imprints from Macmillan has recently stated that from June their ebooks will be DRM-free. This paves the way for publishers to sell their own ebooks directly to the public, or at the very least to allow all other sites to easily sell their ebooks. They could possibly cut Amazon out entirely since Kindle users can buy the DRM-free books without any hassles.

 

[MattyW]

1) It's not just the iPad2 that's going to hurt KF sales. There are some very decent Android tabs now at the $250 most notably the Tab 7.0 Plus. KF is a very poor quality tablet from a UX pov - I have one so I know.
2) That Federal lawsuit was a terrible judicial decision. Amazon's pricing tactics should have come under equal scrutiny, they are far more opaque than Apple or any other publisher in my view. They're the ones holding a monopoly stranglehold on the publishing industry and this decision allows them to continue doing so for the next five years, while Barnes & Noble et al are unable to compete at their pricing game.
3) It is not correct that Amazon doesn't sell the prices. Where publishers set a given price, it's common for Amazon to undercut it and simply reimburse the publisher - for what reason, I can't imagine. See their listing of the Hunger Games - $4 below the publisher price.
4) There is some evidence that Kindle e-ink readers are hardly selling at all now due to Kindle Fire cannibalisation.

With the amazon {wholesale} model at least the competition is on price which is what the free market is all about, if people want to they can still buy e books from apple for $15 instead of $9.99 at amazon. I fail to see how amazon undercutting competition and selling e books at a loss {thus cheaper} is any any way worse {for us the consumers} than selling books at a standardized higher price {making the consumers pay more} which is exactly what happened with the apple model.

Everyone acknowledges that since apple and the publishers entered the agency model e book prices have gone up on average from $9.99 to $15 but their are still people defending this model and saying it's right?? Maybe I am missing something but I can't believe that apple's model benifits the consumer and I would say the lawsuits against them seem to support this position.

 

[cerebus]

With the amazon {wholesale} model at least the competition is on price which is what the free market is all about, if people want to they can still buy e books from apple for $15 instead of $9.99 at amazon. I fail to see how amazon undercutting competition and selling e books at a loss {thus cheaper} is any any way worse {for us the consumers} than selling books at a standardized higher price {making the consumers pay more} which is exactly what happened with the apple model.

Everyone acknowledges that since apple and the publishers entered the agency model e book prices have gone up on average from $9.99 to $15 but their are still people defending this model and saying it's right?? Maybe I am missing something but I can't believe that apple's model benifits the consumer and I would say the lawsuits against them seem to support this position.

Amazon's model is damaging to the publishers; obviously the consumers benefit from cheaper prices but my view is that this is a short term win in any case because more likely than not Amazon's view is to choke the air out of any alternative bookseller's profit margins until the competition has been so aetiolated that they have an effective pricing oligarchy. They notoriously strongarm publishers into accepting prices that they determine. If there is anyone in the book market whose practices can be considered anticompetitive and monopolistic, it must be Amazon - in my view at least.

 

[MattyW]

Amazon's model is damaging to the publishers; obviously the consumers benefit from cheaper prices but my view is that this is a short term win in any case because more likely than not Amazon's view is to choke the air out of any alternative bookseller's profit margins until the competition has been so aetiolated that they have an effective pricing oligarchy. They notoriously strongarm publishers into accepting prices that they determine. If there is anyone in the book market whose practices can be considered anticompetitive and monopolistic, it must be Amazon - in my view at least.

While we can't discount the fact that amazon is trying to get a monopoly on e books let's also not forget we've been here before, amazon HAD a monopoly on e books {by some estimates 90% of the market} and yet all that we've gotten by getting rid of the monopoly is higher prices. Some will argue that this hurts the publishers but no more than apple's sales of digital music in the itunes store, apple is effectively saying they saved us from amazons monopoly on e books by making all consumers pay more when in fact amazon is doing with their e book store exactly what apple did with itunes digital music.

Also apples MFN clause in their contract with the publishers is very dangerous and shouldn't be allowed it basically gives apple protection from competition on price and allows them to maintain a higher profit margin {30%} even if others would be happy to take a far smaller portion of the pie {like amazons (I estimate) 5%-10%}

Also I fail to see how amazon's model was hurting publishers, the price was still set by them, they would sell the e books to amazon at x price and amazon could sell them for however much they like, they made the same amount of money irregardless {arguably more if you consider amazon sold more with cheaper prices but payed them (the publishers) the same irregardless of discount offered by amazon (which came out of amazons bottom line)}. This model is no different than is used by almost every physical store in the world, wholesalers sell to retailers at a discount > retailers sell to the public at the price they determine {if they make or lose money is up to them} and this model has certainly worked well for almost all the other stores around the world, I fail to see how only in this case its hurting the retailers {publishers}.

 

[Sherbang]

Amazon's model is damaging to the publishers; obviously the consumers benefit from cheaper prices but my view is that this is a short term win in any case because more likely than not Amazon's view is to choke the air out of any alternative bookseller's profit margins until the competition has been so aetiolated that they have an effective pricing oligarchy. They notoriously strongarm publishers into accepting prices that they determine. If there is anyone in the book market whose practices can be considered anticompetitive and monopolistic, it must be Amazon - in my view at least.

How is it damaging to the publishers? They can now publish books with no paper costs, printing costs or distribution costs as it's all all electronic and yet they try to sell it at the same or higher price than actual books which do incur all those costs. So they are saving money by not having those costs but instead of passing those savings onto the consumer they want to charge more for the electronic version Greed is all it is

 

[sand_man]

Itunes/Appstore is currently between 40%-60% cheaper than the hard cover equivalent...

 

[LazyLion]

Kindle books have become very overpriced. On new books they now cost more than the paperback version from amazon. Also the fire isn't available in many places and there is no 10 inch version yet.

Amazon deserves the pain its getting.

My kindle books are very cheap!

 

[b@nD]

Cheep cheep

My kindle books are very cheap!

Yeh yeh so are mine Guttenberg and archive.org ( and the "News" server of course )

Anyone interested in co-sponsoring a (proper) book digitiser ?

 

[BigAl-sa]

Anyone interested in co-sponsoring a (proper) book digitiser ?

Been there with the digitising, it's a pain in the butt...

 

[Terencek]

The assertion earlier in this thread that Amazon are 'hardly selling any Kindle e-ink readers at all' is simply nonsense.

Amazon doesn't release sales figures, but if you look at the news item about imminent colour Kindles I have just posted in the News forum, authoritative sources reckon Amazon will sell 12 million Kindle e-ink readers this year (just the readers, NOT the Fire tablet) -- and most of those will be the current versions as the colour one is unlikely to hit the market much before Christmas. That's not exactly 'hardly any'!

The new Kindle 4 (from $79 in the US) is selling about as fast as Amazon can get it out of the warehouse, and take a flight here in SA and you will see them in increasing numbers, either bought direct or through steady but overpriced sales by Incredible Deception.