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There was a quote from Jeff Bezos at Monday's Kindle 2 launch, that seemed incorrect to me. Here's the quote, as noted by Engadget:
"More than 10% of the units we sell are Kindle book sales -- that's astonishing. So what happened? 230,000 things happened, and that's Kindle books. Even the best device without selection is useless."
This seems to be saying that 10% of the books that Amazon sells are Kindle books. Given that there only half a million Kindles out there, this number seemed impossibly high to me - given the tens of millions of people who buy printed books from Amazon.
Today, Bezos restated this but with more precise language. Of the 230,000 titles that are in the Kindle store, Kindle sales equate to ten percent of the sales for those titles.
Here's the quote from the Reuters interview with Bezos - with the bolded emphasis mine.
Reuters: Has Kindle been a big hit since its debut late in 2007?
Jeff Bezos: We had way more demand than we ever expected or even hoped for.
which meant that we were sold out during 2 holiday seasons. which is not a good idea - not the plan. we made more than we though we would need and we still sold out. so its a high quality problem in the sense that demand has been very very good.
Reuters: Popular yes, but aren't digital book sales still a fraction of physical book sales?
Bezos: In 14 months, for the 230,000 titles that we have Kindle additions, Kindle unit sales already represent more than 10 percent of Amazon's total sales in those 230,000 titles. We spent 14 years building our physical books business. And in just 14 months, this is already 10 percent. So we are all very surprised that it is being adopted so quickly.
I think ten percent is still a very impressive number, even in this context.
"More than 10% of the units we sell are Kindle book sales -- that's astonishing. So what happened? 230,000 things happened, and that's Kindle books. Even the best device without selection is useless."
This seems to be saying that 10% of the books that Amazon sells are Kindle books. Given that there only half a million Kindles out there, this number seemed impossibly high to me - given the tens of millions of people who buy printed books from Amazon.
Today, Bezos restated this but with more precise language. Of the 230,000 titles that are in the Kindle store, Kindle sales equate to ten percent of the sales for those titles.
Here's the quote from the Reuters interview with Bezos - with the bolded emphasis mine.
Reuters: Has Kindle been a big hit since its debut late in 2007?
Jeff Bezos: We had way more demand than we ever expected or even hoped for.
which meant that we were sold out during 2 holiday seasons. which is not a good idea - not the plan. we made more than we though we would need and we still sold out. so its a high quality problem in the sense that demand has been very very good.
Reuters: Popular yes, but aren't digital book sales still a fraction of physical book sales?
Bezos: In 14 months, for the 230,000 titles that we have Kindle additions, Kindle unit sales already represent more than 10 percent of Amazon's total sales in those 230,000 titles. We spent 14 years building our physical books business. And in just 14 months, this is already 10 percent. So we are all very surprised that it is being adopted so quickly.
I think ten percent is still a very impressive number, even in this context.
