Geek Biz Report: week ending 18 April, 2010
This is the as-yet-un-branded new feature of my blog, as it seems my readership (such as it is) just can’t get enough of warmed over google-searches, drunken commentary, and links to wikipedia on business topics.
That’s fine. I can work with this.
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If the date on my email is to be believed, just this weekend Amazon [NASDAQ:AMZN] débuted not just a Kindle reader program for Apple’s iPad, they’ve also rolled out similar e-reader programs for iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows PC, and Mac platforms.
[link]
Speaking of Kindle: while no official statement has been made by Amazon as to the actual unit sales of their pioneer e-Reader, at least two blogs cited figures released by DisplaySearch.com that point to a very good estimate — 3.3 million — based on the shipments of hardware parts, noteably the key e-Ink displays.
and here’s the math:
Amazon bought 2/3 of all “electronic paper displays” manufactured in 2009 — and there were 5 Million EPD’s shipped last year: this points to 3.3 million Kindles sold (and 1.7 other e-readers besides, though who knows how that falls out with Sony, Nook, et. al) and 2009 was only the second full year of sales on the Kindle: I’ll remind you the Kindle only launched 30 months ago, in November ’07.
So what’s the new best guess on the Kindle ecosystem? I’d say 5 to 6 million units, or along the lines of the total population of the Boston, Atlanta, or Washington DC metro areas.
If selling comics on the iPad/iPhone ecosystem is like only selling comics to New York, then selling comics on Kindle is like only selling comics in Boston. Not even one person in 15, more like one person in 60.
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Quick Hits:
- Marvel leaves Diamond for Hachette.
- C2E2 seems to be going swimmingly.
- Aniplex launches U.S. DVD division with partner Bandai: an interesting new wrinkle in the anime DVD (& Blu-Ray) localization market.
- Bone Challenged. Honestly, if Jeff Smith’s books (published—well, reprinted in color—by Scholastic) don’t get a pass, then I don’t know what’s acceptable anymore. If kids can’t read Bone then there’s no way in hell we should let them near the Bible (murder, war, genital mutilation, adultery, incest, and 15 different kinds of bloody gruesome Death) (good family reading there, holmes. know it.)
