On Fri, 8 May 2009, Marcello Perathoner wrote:
Michael S. Hart wrote:
However, I will also bet that Kindle sales this year will NOT equal 10% of iPhones and their clones. . . .
If a body buys an ebook reader you can be pretty confident that she will use it to read books. And you don't spend $300 if you just read a little: You read a lot.
"a lot" is still a relative term. No one seems to expect the average Kindle owner to buy more than a book a month, and even the most wild speculations are based on 3 a month by people who don't say that will actually happen. If people are going to talk in relative terminology, it doesn't really mean anything in terms of numbers, hard numbers, and if Kindle doesn't sell in numbers, hard numbers, it will continue to be more PR than an actual reality.
If somebody buys an iPhone (which is basically an inflated iPod) you can be pretty confident that he will listen to music on it.
I would be even more confident about phone calls. However, if only 10% of iPhone users read eBooks on their iPhones, that's more than Kindle users. Apple will sell 10 million iPhones this year and may have sold about that many last year. Again, I repeat, because no one seems to hear it, WE MUST REACH PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE LIVING!!!!!!! People are living with cellphones. . .67% of ALL PEOPLE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET HAVE A CELLPHONE. 20% of the world population maybe has computers. 0%, in round numbers, have a Kindle or Sony. They have to sell 100 million to hit even 1%. They aren't even TRYING for that kind of market! The REALITY of these products lies in numbers of how many are sold and used. The 4.3 billion number of cellphones doesn't even include those that are not in service, but should still make fine eBook readers. . . . Stop being SUBjective. Start being OBjective.