Mobile Computing News

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Yesterday we wrote a piece detailing worldwide e-reader sales, noting that the Barnes & Noble Nook was the first of the high profile stand-alone ebook readers to get a price cut. Our words were barely cold about what that could mean for the Kindle and other ebook readers when Amazon announced a price reduction to the 3G Amazon Kindle, too.

Cheaper than the Nook

The 3G Amazon Kindle has had its price slashed from $259 to $189 (around £129), making it cheaper than even the Barnes & Noble Nook. The Barnes & Noble Nook’s price dropped $60 from $259 to $199 (around £135) for the 3G model, while a cheaper wi-fi only model was introduced at a price tag of $150 (around £100).

Staving off the iPad threat

Many analysts reckon this is the first price-related move on Amazon’s (and Barnes & Noble’s) part to repel the impending iPad threat with its iBooks platform. During his WWDC 2010 keynote, Steve Jobs announced that over 5 million iBooks were sold in the first two months of availability, at an average of 2.5 iBooks per customer (2 million iPads were sold at that point), representing a very large user base and market share.

The iPad has just crossed the three million units sold threshold so the threat it presented at the time is clearly not tapering off.

Two product lines?

Photo: Amazon

It is possible these are the early stages in what could result in two wholly different product categories for e-readers. The one category would be represented by expensive touch screen tablet devices like the iPad, while the other category would be the more traditional e-ink e-readers available today, but at a significantly marked down price tag.

Some have called this the paperback e-reader, representing the model publishers use in releasing books in stores.

If cheap, sub $100 (around £67) or, in the extreme case, sub $50 (around £34) high quality ebook readers did emerge, it is likely that the market would take off in a massive way. Volume over margins would be the new model for manufacturers but, considering the threat the Apple tablet computers are already posing, it may be the only solution. It’s proving very difficult to tell where this market is going, but for consumers, cheaper goods are always a plus.