2015 was the worst yr ever for e-readers

e-Reader innovation has floor to a halt and no new know-how has been developed since 2013. This was the worst yr on file when it comes to general gross sales. Many analysts have proclaimed that solely 9 million items have shipped this yr, which is a lower from the 12 million devoted e-ink gadgets had been bought in 2014 and a far cry from 20 million items that had been bought in 2011.

The e-reader trade is crashing

There are a lot of the reason why main corporations like Amazon and Barnes and Noble solely shipped one new e-reader this yr and Kobo debuted two new fashions. It’s the identical cause why there have been no new 13.3 inch e-readers in 2015, though Onyx and Pocketbook each teased they’d one in improvement, however they’re nowhere to be discovered.

I feel the principle cause why the e-reader trade is in a state of decline is because of the market changing into tremendous saturated between 2009 to 2012. Principally anybody who needed an e-reader went out and purchased one throughout that timeframe.  There’s little cause to spend money on a brand new mannequin yearly, as a result of there isn’t a quantum leaps in know-how, its been completely stagnant.

The second cause is primarily attributed to e-Reader possession hitting an all time low. Pew Analysis performed a examine and located 19% of adults reported proudly owning an e-reader, similar to a Kindle or Nook.This can be a sizable drop from early 2014, when 32% of adults owned any such system. It appears as if folks have shelved their readers and switched to smartphones and tablets.

Pew discovered that 45% of U.S. adults personal a pill – a considerable improve since they started measuring pill possession in 2010. Then, solely 4% of adults within the U.S. had been pill homeowners. Additionally they acknowledged that 68% of adults now have a smartphone, practically double from 2011 when solely 35% of adults had a smartphone.

The Wall Avenue Journal additionally reported this summer season that the smartphone continued to be probably the most adopted piece of know-how to learn e-books. Their premise derived from a current Nielsen survey of two,000 individuals who discovered  54% of e-book consumers stated they used smartphones to learn their books at the very least a number of the time, which is a 24% improve from 2012.

There are just a few e-reader corporations left standing

When Good e-Reader first began reporting on the rise of e-readers and e-books in 2008, the world was nice. Inside just a few quick years there have been dozens of e-reader and e-paper corporations trying to make their mark on the trade.

In 2015 there are just a few corporations left standing. The one firm who’s energetic in e-paper is E-Ink Holdings.  Pixel QI, LG and Bridgestone all deserted their e-paper ambitions just a few years in the past due the perceived lack of demand.  In the meantime within the e-reader sector dozens of corporations went out of enterprise in the previous couple of years, similar to Cool-ER, Entourage, Hanvon, iRex, Greenbook, Spring Design, Kyobo and dozens of others.

There are solely two main corporations left standing within the e-reader house and towards all odds they’ve managed to flourish.. Amazon has the biggest market share and so they account for 75% of all e-books bought within the US, whereas within the UK the determine is nearer to 95%.

The second main international participant needs to be Kobo. The corporate has been on an increasing rampage, making an attempt to dominate markets earlier than Amazon can swoop in. Certainly one of their greatest secrets and techniques to their success is getting their gadgets in bookstores, the place their potential clients are. Michael Tamblyn – CEO of Kobo advised me on just a few events that they deal with bookstores as a result of their product appears extra natural and healthful, as a substitute of being bought at an enormous field retailer, the place know-how is commonly chilly and impersonal. 

What’s an e-reader dialogue with out the Barnes and Noble Nook?  The corporate launched a brand new waterproof e-reader this yr, the primary new mannequin since 2013.

Barnes and Noble has misplaced cash on the Nook side for the final 4 years straight. In whole, they’ve misplaced over 1.2 billion {dollars} on having an excessive amount of stock and promoting too few items. They thought they may resolve this downside by contracting out the pill design to Samsung.

The principle downside with the biggest bookstore chain in america is that they completely refuse to enter into new markets and promote digital content material. This not solely hurts them, however leaves a few of their clients in a quagmire. For instance, digital library distributor Overdrive sources their digital journal assortment and pupil newspapers from from Barnes and Noble. As a result of B&N solely sells it within the US, it limits Overdrives functionality to promote this type of content material in different markets. It additionally forces them to seek out one other companion simply to promote magazines in nations like Canada or the UK.

Whereas Amazon and Kobo dominated the worldwide stage, there are solely a handful of key regional gamers which have any type of gross sales file and established buyer base.  One of the crucial well-known is Tolino, which includes of an alliance of telecom and tech corporations that needed to develop e-readers and open a digital bookstore to stop Amazon from dominating the German market. Netherlands based mostly Icarus has a fond place in geeks hearts as a result of they had been one of many first ones to develop open Android based mostly e-readers, that will let you set up apps identical to you’ll on a smartphone and pill. Pocketbook tends to dominate Japanese Europe, whereas Vitality Sistem does effectively in Spain and at last Onyx Boox who primarily focuses on the profitable Chinese language market.

2016 might be higher

I hope there might be quite a few new applied sciences that may debut in 2016, that may assist revitalize the e-reader trade.

In June 2015 Freescale introduced the IMX 7 twin core processor, which might be integrated into most new e-readers in 2016. This chip was designed by each e Ink and Freescale.  It was mainly developed to present you a greater expertise utilizing Carta, Regal or Pearl screens, however was primarily made for no matter new e-paper tech e-ink comes out with in 2016.

E-Ink also needs to announce Regal 2 in 2016, which is able to work at the side of the brand new Freescale processor. It would lastly make Android pushed e-readers extra viable as a result of refreshing pace might be elevated by just a few hundred %, which is able to make advanced animations, similar to animated web page turns extra viable. Search for this to be introduced at SID Show Week.

Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the previous fifteen years. Newspapers and web sites such because the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Submit and the New York Instances have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.