Amazon: Kindle Titles Outselling Hardcovers

Posted 07/20/2010 at 8:29am | by Pulkit Chandna

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Many expect the new wave of devices with digital reading capabilities to precipitate the demise of physical books, limiting them to atavists. That said, there is no dearth of people who fervidly repel these antemortem requiems for books as we know and love them.  With a great deal of its business centered around the popularity of e-books, Amazon is undoubtedly of the former type.

Amazon is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books, according to a press release. Kindle books have outsold the latter variety by 43% during the past three months, with that margin shooting up to 80% during the past month. But numbers don’t tell the entire story, especially when they are not meant to. Amazon intentionally left out paperback sales numbers from the equation.

“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," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books-astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months."