My colleague Jason M. forwarded me a link to this blog post by Computerworld’s Mike Elgan. On the surface, it sounds like the same old banter about Amazon and why aren’t they telling us how many Kindles they’ve sold so far.
In fact, at least one person who commented on the post (“HeavyG”) calls Elgan out for piling on like this. HeavyG goes on to suggest that Amazon should continue to keep this a secret just to see “how many folks get their panties in a bunch.” HeavyG is a Kindle owner and doesn’t care whether the number of units sold is “10,000 or 100,000 or 1,00,000.” Well said, sort of…
Kiss of death if base is small
For HeavyG’s sake, I hope the number is on the high end, not the low end. After all, if HeavyG really likes the Kindle, a small base will be the kiss of death for it in the long run. How long do you think Amazon (or any other company, for that matter) would continue touting and producing this device if the base were to remain in the thousands? Not very long.
Good point, Mike
But back to the Elgan post… He makes a good point about why Amazon would want to continue stoking demand with premium, front-and-center placement of it on their home page, particularly when supply can’t keep up with demand as it is. Why not ease off the throttle a bit till there’s an abundant supply of the devices on-hand and then dial up the on-site promotional efforts again? One reason might be that this step would cause even more conspiracy theorists (like myself) to speculate that Amazon is backing off the device and not as excited about it as they once were. That would probably be more damaging to momentum than the out-of-stock situation they’ve endured since day one, I suppose.
Any harm in saying?
Four months into this now, I still have the same question Elgan has: How many are out there? What’s the harm in saying? Apple, one of the most secretive tech companies on the planet, seems to be quite comfortable stating the numbers of iPods they’ve sold and iTunes songs that have been downloaded. Of course, those numbers are enormous and it’s probably fun to announce them, particularly when you’re the market share king. That point alone probably says a lot about the reason for the Kindle number silence…
There is a thread at MobileRead discussing this, and the consensus seems to be that the shortage of screens is holding things up.
If they have a device that only works with one or very few formats…well…it’ll probably wither on the vine. Wouldn’t it have made sense to do an “open” device?
At least we can be pretty sure that Mobipocket, as a format, should survive (given the base from books at Fictionwise, Baen, etc.).
Amazon will have to ‘fess up on the numbers at some point. Investors will start to wonder, worry and fret if they don’t, but continue to splash it across their opening screen.
While I still really don’t care how many Kindle units have been sold I would agree that “more” is probably better than “less”. On the other hand the nearly one million HD-DVD players sold really didn’t seem to help its longevity in the marketplace now did it.
To those that are so fascinated by this secret number I would ask – what number of units moved would be deemed a success?
Would anything less than 100,000 be a failure? 50,000? 25,000?
Ferrari sold about 6400 cars last year compared to some number of millions sold by Toyota. Is Ferrari a failure? I doubt that anyone would make that argument (except maybe the Lambo or Porsche fan-boys).
Is the scarcity of the Kindles “real” or is Bezos trying to hide something? My guess is that production capacity of these units can’t meet demand. As to how deep that demand is…
How many Sony e-ink readers have been sold? How many Iliads sold? How many [insert your e-ink device here]have been sold? Realistically how big is the potential marketplace for e-ink readers at their current rather premium pricing? How large is the potential market for e-books given the current rats nest of competing formats, DRM, and lack of titles as compared to the print world?
Given the current premium pricing of the Kindle and the lack of availability of titles (as compared to print releases or P as is the style here) I can’t imagine that there is really a “huge” market for the device under even the rosiest of projections. But how do we define huge? I also think any comparisons to Apples ipods/iTunes is comparing oranges to, well, apples.
The one sales statistic I am curious about is how many books have been sold per Kindle (I bought my Kindle on launch day and have since purchased about 40 books). I think that is as important a number (if not more so) than the number of Kindles sold.
Is it more important to sell 100,000 units if only 2 books/unit/month are sold or is it better if only 50,000 units are sold with sales of 10 books/unit/month?
Since I have no idea what the business model/projections were when this project was hatched I’m in no position to judge the Kindle endeavor a success or failure whether the sales numbers are released or not.
Perhaps one day those numbers will be released. Until then, however, I’m not going to walk around with a wedgie, dreaming up conspiracy theories as to the reasons for keeping that data quiet.
If/when those sales numbers are released we can then all argue over what they mean 🙂
I think that Amazon recognizes that its current model is not sustainable. With “free shipping” they often lose money on their book sales, which is no way to run a business. So, what alternatives do they have? One thing they’re doing is serving as a middle-man, connecting their customers with other suppliers and taking a cut. That’s okay, but it runs the risk of losing the customer.
Better is a business model that involves delivering value over the net (where they’re strong) and eliminating delivery expenses. If they’re going to get margin in the book business, it’s got to be in eBooks. If the Kindle fails, I think Amazon is in a lot bigger trouble than just the couple of million they spent on R&D.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
I think if they’d sold 100,000 units, they’d be screaming that to the world. I’d bet low tens of thousands. Probably lowballed the initial production and then got surprised by how fast the thing sold out, and now have problems getting back up to speed.
If you think Amazon is going to give up on the Kindle, regardless of number sold, or the amount they lose on each one, I’d say you haven’t thought through what the Kindle is to Amazon.