The Pew Research Center just released the results of their most recent survey, and guess what? Twelve percent of Americans now own an e-reader. That’s double the results from the November 2010 survey. The increase stands in stark contrast to the number of tablet owners. Between January 2011 and may 2011, that figure rose from 7% to only 8%.
Now this is interesting when you factor in the iPad. Apple sold 25 million iPads, and yet more people own e-readers that tablets (that includes iPads). Until I saw this data, I was thinking about suggesting that the iPad be the new target device for making ebooks. Think about the number sold, and I’m sure you’ll understand why i thought that.
But now we know that there are still more ebook readers out there than tablets, so obviously I was wrong.
On the other hand, perhaps I was focused on the wrong device. Do you recall the ebook reader that launched in late October? I find it a curious coincidence that the Nook Color launched just before the uptick in the graph. Actually, I doubt that it’s a coincidence, but we’ll never be able to prove the causation.
RSS
Email
Facebook
Twitter
>>>I find it a curious coincidence that the Nook Color launched just before the uptick in the graph.
Or that crap Pandigital Novel…
The non-linear X-axis makes it hard to interpret that graph. It suggests that the Kindle 3 release in September didn’t do much to boost e-reader sales, but a careful examination shows that about the same number of e-readers were sold in the following 2 months as in the preceding 4 months.
So there’s a “bump” in sales rate then, and another one starting in November when NOOK Color, Sony Daily Edition (950), and Kobo Wi-Fi came out. Oh, and Christmas was just around the corner.
More e-readers out there is good news, no matter which one is responsible for the uptick.