Kindle 3 Catapults Amazon to 48% eReader Market Share in 2010

March 13, 2011 by Carrie divider image

Kindle 3 eReader News: International Data Corporation (IDC), tablet and eReader analyst, recently released their 2010 sales data. In the understatement of the year, IDC announced that Apple led the tablet market handily, taking home 80% of the tablet dollars spent. In a closer competition, but still definitely one-sided, Amazon scooped up 48% of the eReader market, thanks predominantly to the Kindle 3.

Thanks to the release of the Kindle 3, Amazon finished the year strong, after a low in 2010 of 40% market share in the third quarter. Very heavy marketing from competitors like Sony, Pandigital, Barnes and Noble (BN) and Hanvon saw eReaders pop up more frequently and become widely accepted as a viable technological device. In the fourth quarter of 2010 alone, 6 million eReaders of all brands were shipped, double the number in Q3. Pandigital actually moved into the number two spot in Q4 thanks to their appropriately named Novel eReader, but eventually gave that spot back to BN thanks to the Nook and NookColor.

The culmination of better weather in spring coinciding with an evolution in eReader technology like E-Ink, WIFI and 3G cellular connectivity will almost certainly see the presence of more eReaders on the market and increased portable PC penetration by Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other e-book reading devices.

The overall trend in the U.S. to more personal electronics in an attempt to entertain and educate rather than serve necessary functional operations steams ahead regardless of the economic downturn of the last two years. Americans simply must have their technology, and there is no better evidence of this than in the tablet fever we are in the midst of in 2011.

The Apple iPad 2 was released March 11^th and immediately sold out in almost all locations in one day. 2011 tablet PC shipments of 50 million units are predicted by IDC, with Apple forecasted to take a whopping 70 to 80% of that market. 2010 saw the beginning of the Tablet PC explosion that evidenced itself in the Consumers Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, where 70+ tablets were presented by various manufacturers.

Tablets and eReaders are very similar in form and function, slate or slab-like data processors with multimedia viewing capabilities. The personal computer that was so technologically advanced sitting on our desktops 20 years ago has now been compressed to a wafer thin slice of web browsing amazement that virtually allows us access to all the computer-bound knowledge of our society and it seems all we want to do is play games and text. Thanks to the eReaders, at least some of us are adding reading to our repertoire.

Learn more about the Kindle eReader in the Amazon Kindle Store.

Kindle Wi-Fi: Buy Now at Amazon for $139

Kindle 3G: Buy Now at Amazon for $189

Kindle DX: Buy Now at Amazon for $379

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March 13, 2011 at 12:18 PM
Kindle 3 Catapults Amazon to 48% eReader Market Share in 2010 | Fabulous

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