News: eBooks Outsell Real Books

Amazon.com, one of the world’s largest booksellers, has announced that sales of books for its e-reader Kindle have been outnumbering sales of hardcover books.

Over the last three months, Amazon has been selling an average of 143 e-books for Kindle to every hardcover book – with the last couple of weeks seeing the figures rise to 180 e-books to every 100 hardcover.

Amazon says that its sales rate has exceeded the national growth spurt of e-reader sales, which have quadrupled within the last year according to The New York Times.  The figures do not include the free books included when purchasing a Kindle.

Considering the fears of some investors that the Kindle would be soon eclipsed by the iPad, the figures are surprising if not astounding.  Despite selling roughly 3 million iPads since July alone, Kindle sales have continued to strengthen.

Market commentators have speculated that many people do not see the iPad as an e-reading device, and feel content to own both an e-reader and iPad side by side.  Youssef H. Squali, managing director at Jefferies & Company in charge of Internet and new media research, says that Amazon’s latest figures show “clearly an indication that the iPad is complementary to the Kindle, not a replacement”.