MacDailyNews Take: Yes, the final chapter.*
Kharif continues, “Wall Street analysts are already slicing their forecasts for Kindle sales. Charlie Wolf, a senior analyst at Needham & Co. who has a ‘buy’ rating on Apple shares, on Apr. 9 cut his forecast for Kindle sales this year, settling on a range from 2.5 million to 3 million units, in place of a previous forecast of 3.6 million units. Wolf estimates that Amazon sold 2.2 million Kindles in 2009. ‘It’s not a compelling product,” he says of the Kindle, because Apple’s iPad offers more features, such as the ability to play video, plus a more compelling design.’ Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has an “overweight” rating on Amazon shares, cut his 2010 forecast for Kindle sales by 400,000 units, to 3.45 million.”
“The iPad starts at $499 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage, a color touchscreen, and a library of 60,000 e-books. It also affords users the ability to watch videos, listen to music, and run a wide variety of applications,” Kharif reports. “‘No one in their right mind is going to buy a Kindle DX,’ says Munster.”
Kharif reports, “To keep pace with consumers’ heightened expectations about what a tablet-style computer should do, Amazon may need to lower the Kindle’s price or introduce such new features as a color screen to make the device more compelling, analysts say.”
MacDailyNews Take: Analysts are full of you-know-what at least 95% of the time. *What Amazon actually needs to do is throw in the towel on the hardware, which is not their core competency, and focus on their Kindle app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Amazon can save a lot of wasted time, effort and money now, or they can re-read this reprinted Take on the day they discontinue Kindle hardware development.
Kharif continues, “On Apr. 3, the day the tablet went on sale, Piper Jaffray surveyed 448 customers in line at Apple’s New York and Minneapolis stores. Ten percent of prospective buyers said they had considered a Kindle but decided instead to buy an iPad. And 58% of the respondents who already owned Kindles said they planned to stop using them in light of their iPad purchase… Amazon isn’t the only company whose products are suffering from comparisons with Apple’s tablet. The iPad is drawing consumers’ attention away from such other dedicated e-book readers as Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Sony’s Reader, analysts say.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The same advice as above applies to all e-reader makers who also own e-book stores. Focus on your iPad/iPhone/iPod touch apps. To those making standalone e-readers sans e-book stores, you’ll want cut your losses now and explore other markets.
I’m surprised Apple allows iBooks competitors for iPad. Give them credit I guess! iBooks is an elegant app no one, including Zinio, Amazon, and Kindle, can compete with on the iPad! I just wish magazines were available thru iBooks like Zinio has.
And they are just starting to realize this? Devastating implications for the Kindle have been obvious since the iPad was only a rumor.
Apple isn’t trying to kill the Kindle, any more than they are carrying a grudge against Adobe. They are merely making the right moves to create superior devices. If that damages the makers of mediocre product it’s just collateral damage.
Patience…
I would like to see a review of the kindle , against the kindle app on the iPad, and barnes and noble app against the iPad app
i want my ipad 3g!!!!!!!
Imaki go kaki
@iMaki:
Apple allows iBook competitors on iPad because it means people will buy iPads over Kindles or Nooks. And it makes the platform attractive for current Kindle owners because they will still be able to access their Kindle eBooks on their new iPad.
Apple sells hardware. If someone uses their hardware to read books from someone’s bookstore, Apple is happy.
*sniff*
The Kindle has it’s issues, and it’s certainly no iPad, but there’s something to said about devices that do one thing and do it well…or at least well enough.
Kindle ain’t goin’ nowhere…and by that double-negative I mean to imply it’ll be…staying…somewhere…namely, with me: in my backpack, on the train, in the bed, in the comfy chair, up against the backside of the barn, down the upper-left front-end of the reverse flip-side bottom inner-underbelly ……….
I love my Kindle. It is easy on my eyes, has a crazy long battery life and is light. I love my iPad as well but if I am going to read for 2 to 3 hours I go for my Kindle. If it doesn’t work for you that’s fine but I don’t know why MDN has to pan it all the time.
The Kindle has three small advantages over the iPad:
1. It’s lighter. Yes, holding a 0.7 kg iPad gets tiring after awhile. I’ve adapted, but if you want to sit by the beach reading, it’s just easier to hold the lighter Kindle.
2. You can read it in bright light. So, sitting by the beach and reading in bright light is easy with the Kindle, not so much with the iPad (just tried it, so I know of what I speak).
3. 3G is free on the Kindle.
That being said, I dumped my Kindle on eBay for the same price I paid for it (I wisely did this before the iPad was launched).
I prefer the Kindle app to the iBook app because I have literally 100 books on Kindle. Furthermore, I can use the Kindle app on both my iPhone and iPad, which I cannot do with iBook (at this time). And, I feel as though the Kindle app is a bit easier to use for reading (personal preference), though the iBook is easier to buy books.
Just bought a book on the kindle app for ipad, I actually like the app and reader immensely, plus the selection seems to be better (for now) than ibooks. My only caveat is that I would prefer a single bookshelf for all my books as opposed to competing apps. So once the apple selection is up to snuff (os4 sync with ipod/better selection etc) I’ll probably go that way permanently.
Oh, and I LOVE my iPad, i’d agree with SJ that it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. It actually changes the setup i want in the house (17″ MBP for me, air for her) Now I just want a beast of an iMac and 2 iPads. Now where did I put that credit card…
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@cmw, the new MBP’s announced today couldn’t be any less tempting in light of the iPad! If someone offered me the choice of a free iPad or a free i7 MBP, I’d pick the iPad. To me, it’s not an economics question; it’s a question of ease of use, portability, and lifestyle.
Kindle has obvious advantages as a pure eReader. iPad like iPhone can do everything pretty well but is not the best it the category of most of those things. eg. its not the best email device but its good, not the best eReader but good (but it goes beyond basic book concept – Elements for example), not the best phone but good.
But they have the distinction of being able to a million other very cool things (pick an app..). Not all eReader customers want that, or want to read from a glossy LCD screen.
Piper Jaffray surveyed 448 customers in line at Apple’s New York and Minneapolis stores.
10%…said they had considered a Kindle
58%…already owned Kindles said they planned to stop using them.
30 % said: “Wait, how many people are in front of me in this line!?”
The remaining 2% said: “Whoa…Piper Jaffray…Cool-ass name dude! Is this the line for the Zune Phone?”
I just returned from doing my morning laps at the local mall. The Barnes & Noble’s store has a large attended kiosk specifically to showcase the Nook. Then attendant was present, but the customers were unaccounted for.
The iPad is killing off dedicated e-readers and iPod touches right left and center. It’s a bloodbath.
Yes, I said it’s killing off the iPod touch as well. 13″ MBPs are next.
Amazon should have seen this competition coming and not stuck to its “one trick pony” / do-one-thing-well mantra. For instance, it should have included a three-line LCD screen like the AlphaSmart, which would have allowed users to compose documents and send e-mails. For an extra $5 (?), users would have had two fewer reasons to switch to the iPad, and sales would have been 10% (?) higher.
And rain is wet.
More blood on the touchscreen.
Kindle, Nook, et al, have a place. As others have noted, they are lightweight, last a week or more on a charge, and are better at the beach in bright sun. And as I’ve said before, I am less likely to have a Kindle ripped off at the beach or pool while I’m in the water than I would be with an iPad. It really boils down to what you are reading. If you are reading nothing more than a reproduced paperback, then a Kindle may actually be preferable. If, on the other hand, you want to read a full color magazine, or an illustrated book, like the new Alice in Wonderland app, you just have to have an iPad. So, are reading, or are you READING?.
Amazon doesn’t care. They will continue to make Kindles and sell them to whoever wants a single-purpose reading device. And since Amazon does not state sales numbers, the analysts will just keep guessing.
Amazon doesn’t care, because they mostly want to profit in this area from selling the e-media, not the reader. Kindle was a way to sell this content to consumers, like making razors to sell the razor blades, or printers to sell the ink refills. Now, there is this thing out there called iPad that will outsell Kindle 10 to 1. Soon, there will be more potential ebook customers than Kindle would have made possible in ten years. And unlike competing ebook readers, such as Nook from Barnes & Noble, iPad users can buy from any ebook store, as long as there is a ebook reader app for that store. What could be better…?
So actually, Amazon DOES care; they are probably very happy about the prospects of iPad for Amazon’s business, although they may be a bit worried about about how the rise in ebook-consumption will impact their existing paper book business. That concern was probably why Kindles had such a high price tag (to keep the rate of ebook adoption under control). If Amazon had really wanted ebook sales to take off, they had the power to “give away” Kindles for $99 (or even less), in order to grow the potential customer base for Amazon’s ebooks as quickly as possible.
But Steve Jobs fooled them into thinking Apple was not interested, because supposedly, Americans no longer read books. Now, it’s Apple that will controls the rate of ebook adoption by consumers, and the device used for consumption. “Kindle” will soon become better known as an iPad app, not a piece of hardware. And Apple is also happy, as long as you buy an iPad to use the Kindle app.
It is interesting to note that Apple’s reported sales (not counting pre-orders) are approximately 50,000 per day. At that rate, Apple will sell twice as many iPads in 90 days as Kindles sold by Amazon in all of 2009. It is sort of the MP3 player story all over again.
I am looking forward to the Apple’s financial call. It appears that the odds are about even that Apple will announce a million units sold at that time.
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Posted from my iPod Touch. – ss