Mashable has an article (citing an IDC study) about the 17 million iPad units shipped in 2010, but it also focuses on the number of e-book readers that were sold. In the e-book field, they peg the Kindle selling 1.14 million units in the third quarter of 2010, but instead of Barnes & Noble the Pandigital Novel takes second place with 440 thousand units, followed by the Nook in third at 420 thousand.

I find myself more than a little suspicious of these numbers, however, given that I know Amazon doesn’t ever reveal how many units they sell, and I’m not sure Barnes & Noble does either. (Don’t know whether Pandigital does or not.)

Still, even the fact that Pandigital is mentioned in the same breath as the “big two” seems to suggest that the e-book reader market may not be quite the two-horse race we’ve been assuming it was. Pandigital has done a very good job getting the Novel into a large number of retail outlets (including rather unexpected ones such as Bed Bath and Beyond), and it’s a lot less expensive than other non-Kindle-or-Nook competitors—demonstrating that it’s possible to compete on other factors than just brand-name recognition. Having access to the Barnes & Noble Nook e-book store doesn’t hurt either.

And those high sales for this LCD reader (coupled, of course, with the 17 million iPads sold) suggest that a significant number of readers aren’t fixated on e-ink as the only display technology that’s easy to read.

It will be quite interesting to see what the future holds for Pandigital, and for other would-be Kindle-killers.

3 COMMENTS

  1. I also have doubts about the supposed PanDigital success. Because I’m in the industry, I keep my eyes open for eBook sightings. I’ve sighted Kindles, I’ve sighted Nooks, and I’ve sighted iPhones. I haven’t sighted many iPads, but I suspect people use these at home.

    In discussion groups, I hear talk about these three.

    When I get customer questions, they’re about Nook or Kindle.

    My sampling may not be fully random (maybe there are millions of Pandigital units being sold in parts of the country where I don’t travel) but it certainly leads me to question this apparent success.

    Rob Preece
    Publisher

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