International Data Corporation whom is considered one of the leading global market intelligence company has just released some interesting statistics. It seems in 2010 13 million e-readers and 18 million Tablet PC‘s were shipped globally.
Retail giant Amazon led the entire e-reader sales scene, retaining around a total 48% market share, not only in the pivotal 4th quarter earnings but in 2010 in its entirely. Amazon saw great earnings with its new Kindle 3 WIFI and 3G e-readers and slashed prices on them to boot.
A very interesting fact surfaced in this report regarding the nations largest bookstore chain Barnes and Noble. Their first color e-reader sold a tremendous amount of copies during the holiday season, but were edged out of the number 2 position by Pandigital. Pandigital saw great strides in the market with their Novel e-Reader. A big proponent of the companies overtaking B&N was due to the fact Pandigital is available in more regions and enjoys more retail prevalence in countries like Canada.
Rounding off the top 4 was Havon, whom half of their shipments were shipped to China and Sony. Worldwide Sony shipments rose 80% during the 4th quarter and sold more then 800,000 e-readers during 2010. We are still seeing worldwide shortages of the Sony PRS-650.
In the 4th quarter of 2010, the global e-reader market more than doubled volume from the previous quarter, with more than 6 million units shipped for the quarter, bringing the full-year total to 12.8 million units shipped. eReader shipments were also up more than 325% from 2009 when roughly 3 million units shipped. The strong growth reflects a more competitive offering as well as widening interest in the category, including a boost from media tablet press and much lower pricing.
The entire Tablet PC market really took off in 2010 with the release of the Apple iPad. This first the first mainstream tablet and left the competition rushing to produce their own technology. Although the iPad 2 is launching tomorrow IDC still products Apple to control 70-80% of the entire market.
Samsung came in as one of the only true viable Apple alternative, leading the charge with its Samsung Galaxy Tab. They will expand on their first offerings in 2011 with the 10 inch and 8 inch Honeycomb 2nd generation models.
Other companies are launching new products during 2011 which might be good to look out for. Motorola recently launched their new Tablet and LG, HTC and other competitors might make some ground this year.
via IDC
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
