The Digital Reader

Digitimes are reporting:

A total of 1.35 million e-book readers were shipped to the global market in the second quarter of 2010, 33.2% fewer than the originally projected 2.02 million units, chiefly because shipments of new models were delayed to the third quarter, according to Digitimes Research.

…

Barnes & Noble took the leading position in the second quarter with 33% market share, followed by Amazon’s 27%. However, Amazon is expected to regain the leading position in the third quarter when the company launches a new product, Digitimes Research noted.

There are 2 stories here. The first is that Digitimes’ predictions obviously can’t be trusted; they missed the actual number by 33%. The projected number is irrelevant for any real purpose than to judge Digitimes’s competence.

The other story here is the market shares. It doesn’t match with what I’ve seen, but it could still be true. And if it is then this would explain why B&N decided to get into a price war. They’re making their profit on volume.