Photo: Peter Dreisiger / Flickr

As if the world needed any more proof that eBooks were here to stay, Amazon has announced that its Kindle eBooks have now become the most popular format on the site, overtaking even paperbacks.

Surely this is the tipping point

This, however, is not the first time digital books sales on Amazon have outstripped that of physical books, considering the online retailer last year announced it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hard cover sold. Now, though, seeing 115 Kindle books sold to each 100 paperbacks – which are comparably much cheaper than hard covers – is certainly something worth celebrating and even boasting about.

Incidentally, the gap between hardcovers and Amazon Kindle eBooks has only been increasing, with three eBooks being sold to every hardcover on Amazon.com.

You were wrong, Mr. Bezos!

One thing about the Kindle eBooks sales that has not gone to Amazon’s plans is when this physical to digital divide would be crossed. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, predicted that this would only happen in Q2 of this year, and he’s off by a full two months. Strangely, I don’t think the man minds too much that this is so, given how big a piece of the eBook pie Amazon owns.

Riding the wave

Amazon is currently riding the eBook reader wave all the way to the bank, with the company dominating the digital reader sector in much the same way Apple’s iPad is dominating the tablet PC market.

In fact, we bring up the iPad deliberately because many said that it would eat the Amazon Kindle e-reader for breakfast. On all indications, this has not happened, with Amazon selling a rumoured 8 million Kindles prior to Christmas last year, and with the online retailer announcing the Kindle was its best selling product on Amazon. Ever.

Furthermore, though it’s easy to think other eBook readers are struggling to survive due to Amazon’s dominance, there’s equal argument that the market for digital books wouldn’t be as advanced as it is if it weren’t for Amazon. That in itself is reason enough to be quite optimistic about eBooks and the whole eBook readers market.

Photo: goXunuReviews / Flickr

Mark your calendar, folks, because this is a historic period for the viability of electronic books. Why do we say so? Oh, simply because mega online shopping service, Amazon, has announced Kindle eBook sales outnumber hardcover sales. And by some margin, too.

143 to 100

Amazon announced that, over the last quarter, for every 100 old-school paper-based book it has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle eBooks. Oh, and for those naysayers who think that’s a temporary blip, think again. In the last month, the gap has widened to 183 Kindle eBooks for every 100 paper-based books. That’s barely shy of two to one, which will be extremely significant when it does happen.

Stats explosion

For those of you who like numbers, Amazon didn’t hold back on those either. The Kindle store now has over 630,000 eBooks available for Kindle. More than 500,000 of those cost less than $10. While we’re on 500,000, five different authors have sold over half a million units on Kindle, including critical and commercial darling Stieg Larsson.

Price slash helping

The Kindle recently had its price slashed down to $189, bringing it closer to the desired price point of the paperback e-reader. Many assumed this would have a very positive effect on sales, but I doubt people would have been able to guess just how positive. Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and CEO, says, ‘We’ve reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle – the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189.’ Can you imagine how sales of the device would explode if it was cheaper still? Sub $150? Maybe even $99.99? And, honestly, this seems to be the only viable price point for e-readers.

Great for e-readers

While the Kindle news is fantastic for Amazon, it’s also great for other e-readers manufacturers. As Bezos so astutely says, this represents a tipping point for the market segment, particularly from an acceptance perspective. And while Amazon gets the major spoils for now, as other alternative open platforms inevitably emerge, all the e-readers will get in on the act, big time.

Multi-function devices still pose a threat to stand-alone e-readers, but don’t count them out just yet.