The Amazon digital book juggernaut seems unstoppable at the moment and looks like it would chew up anything and everything that comes its way. It did so with the hardcover books back in July 2010 and now the latest victim is paperbacks. “Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com,” as per the company earning release.
The date was precisely the 19th of July 2010 when the world had first seen sales of digital books at Amazon taking over hardcover books for the first time in its history. While paperbacks seems safe then, almost six months later, it isn’t so for as per the latest earning release for the fourth quarter, Amazon has reported what however was always expected. But what surprised many including Amazon itself is the pace at which sales of digital books have overtaken that of paperbacks since it was in the second quarter of this year that Amazon had expected this to take place.
“Thanks to our customers, we achieved two big milestones,” announced Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com in the company’s press release.
“We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales.”
For the full Amazon.com press release, click here.
Sovan Mandal is the senior tablet and tech corespondent for goodereader.com. He brings a international approach to news that is not just applicable to the North American market, but also Asia, India, Europe and others. Sovy brings his own writing flavor to the website and is interested in Science Fiction, Technology and Writing. Any questions, send an email
