E-Book Market Is Shifting Away From Amazon’s Target
Future sales prospects for e-book readers bear scant resemblance to the high-earning male tech optimists who own these devices today, said Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps. Instead, the next wave of buyers is likely to feature females who read a lot, but buy fewer books online than early adopters.
"I've heard from clients that they're already seeing this shift -- more women buying the devices and shopping for e-books," Rotman Epps said. "This spells trouble for Amazon."
Early adopters were a perfect storm of demographics for Amazon because they could afford the devices, like technology, and buy lots of books online, Rotman Epps said. However, only 1.5 percent of U.S. online consumers said they currently own an e-book reader in Forrester's latest survey.
By contrast, the research firm estimates that the number of such devices sold in the United States will grow from three million by the end of this year to 13 million by the end of 2013. However, the sales prospects that Amazon needs to attract "are more likely to be female, less tech-optimistic, and they read a lot -- on average, five books per month," Rotman Epps observed.
Amazon's dilemma is that the next wave of potential customers is more likely to "buy and borrow books from multiple sources, as opposed to buying lots of books online," Rotman Epps said. And this could spell big trouble for the market leader should its rivals elect to make moves "to better serve the later waves of adopters who don't have as strong a relationship with the e-commerce giant," Rotman Epps said.
Moreover, demographics aren't the only challenge Amazon faces. "Open...
