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New Survey Report Shows Correlation between Amazon’s Sales of Content and Hardware

Posted on 2013-Dec-16

by BB eBooks Staff

Amazon as eBook Leader

Army

Although it might be an impossible mission to identify the exact number of eBook sales and percentage of the market share Amazon has dominated, many sources consistently claim that 65% could be the number that the company has already achieved. Given the strong percentage that Amazon leads the eBook market, a survey report provides an outlook to how eBook sales on Amazon have been linked with the ownership of Kindle devices: eReaders and tablets.

CIRP Survey Report

Chart

Amazon leading the eBook market is perhaps nothing new in itself especially when the blog space is reserved most of the time for either one of their programs or a new Kindle Store launch. However, there is a press release that shows a new survey report done by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) that compares the shoppers’ spending habit between the owners of Kindle and Non-Kindle devices. The report shows how many of them have diversified their spending across various Amazon’s departments. It is estimated by CIRP that the owners of Kindle devices account for 40% of all Amazon shoppers owning approximately 20.5 million units of Kindle tablets and eReaders as of September 20, 2013.

  • 40% of the shoppers can be broken down into three groups according to their pie chart.
  • 19% of those who own Kindle Fire
  • 12% who own an eReader
  • 9% who own both

“Interestingly, 9% of Amazon.com customers own both devices, suggesting how well Amazon has done to drive sales of what amounts to a portal to Amazon.com,” said Josh Lowitz, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP. He further estimates that the owners may spend up to $1,233 per year compared to $790 for those who do not own Kindle devices. 51% of the shoppers in the former group are reported to buy from 7 or more departments with an average of 6.4 departments whereas 35% of the latter group shop in 5.5 departments. The shopping experience on the devices apparently facilitates the owners of those devices to buy straight from their devices and thus generate more sales in the Kindle Store.

What Readers Want to Buy

Barcode

For eReader owners, their shopping experience might be restricted to eBooks while tablets owners can look for a variety of products: apps, audiobooks, and magazines. With a more powerful processor, Kindle Fire owners can enjoy multitasking experience and thus increase their spending budget towards more expensive content. Michael W. Perry counters in the comment section how the actual reading budget might have been weakened by readers’ experiment with other eBook subscription services like Oyster and Scribd now that readers are more familiar with more “online library” services.

Kindle Owners’ Budget

Rope

Referring to the shoppers’ diverse shopping experience mentioned above, it remains unclear how $1,233 is spent to buy products from each of the departments of Amazon. Nevertheless, the number of Kindle devices owned tend to provide a clearer picture of how many of Amazon-branded devices have been shipped to the consumers and how the consumers have actually responded to using their internal shopping system to buy the content they want.

Interpretation of Hardware Sales at a Loss

Looking past the hardware sales that Amazon try to sell their devices at cost, the survey report attempts to show why content can be their prized motivation. Building the ecosystem that facilitates users to shop within the app, they are more likely to browse the products based on Amazon’s departmental deals. Within Kindle eReader’s scope, eBooks are undoubtedly the prime content whereas the real shopping experience requires the more popular Fire. With that being said, for those who own both devices, the ownership does not represent a strong majority at the moment.

Label: eBook Industry News

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