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.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

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.