Might Amazon Be Encouraged To Release New Products Other Than The Kindle Reader

Amazon’s newly released third generation is selling extremely well at the moment. An upgrade – which incorporates a new 50% higher contrast e-ink technology display, smaller and lighter casing, faster page turns and a doubling of memory to 4GB – accompanied by a price reduction and the launch of a new Wi-Fi only entry level model, has seen demand for the Kindle reader take off.

Currently, the new upgraded Kindles are out of stock and prospective customers face a three to four week wait before any new ones begin shipping. Sales of Kindle books are now regularly higher than hardback edition sales. It looks to be only a matter of time before e-book sales outstrip paperback sales.

Amazon has also opened a dedicated UK Kindle store so that UK customers don’t require to have their readers shipped across the Atlantic and can pay for their Kindle purchases in their local currency. It seems probable that further “local” Kindle stores will be opened for other Amazon international websites such as Germany, France etc. in the future.

In short, everything in the garden is pretty rosy for Amazon right now. Predictions that the Kindle would be killed off as a result of the launch of the Apple iPad seem to be largely inaccurate. Amazon’s policy of releasing free “apps” to allow Kindle books to be read on a variety of different devices looks to be paying dividends. So, considering what a huge success they have had with their first manufactured product, it’s probably no surprise that Amazon is reported to be considering developing prototypes for consumer gadgets other than the Kindle in their Lab 126 research facility.

Amazon has made no comment on what they may, or may not, be developing, but it has been suggested that they may be looking at mobile phones and music and/or movie players. However, industry analysts suggest that, were Amazon to enter the market with another gadget, they would need to be sure that they were adding value rather than just releasing another piece of personal electronic tech onto the market.

Much of the success of the Kindle reader must be attributed to Amazon’s strong association with books and reading in general. The huge number of Kindle books on offer – over 630,000 and increasing daily – and the fact that these can be read on so many other devices has been a big selling point. Any new gadget that Amazon decided to launch would probably need some similar type of support in order to achieve anything approaching the level of success enjoyed by the Kindle.