Will loyal fans of e-books be willing to pay tablet prices for dedicated e-readers? Amazon is about to find out.
The e-commerce giant's latest Kindle is its
smallest and lightest yet. But it's also the most expensive, at
$290—almost a hundred bucks more than the current champ, the $200 Kindle
Voyage. Now the company is betting that its sleek frame and a cover
that doubles as a rechargeable battery will attract dedicated e-book
users to its eighth generation device, called the Kindle Oasis.
Amazon says the new Kindle is 30 percent thinner and 20
percent lighter than previous Kindles. It's also asymmetrical, with a
grip on one side for one-handed reading. (Lefties can just flip the
device over.)
The company's goal? "To make the device disappear," said
Neal Lindsay, vice president of Amazon Devices, so that people can read
without distraction.
The e-reader landscape has experienced a few plot twists
since Amazon introduced the first Kindle in 2007. Sales surged for a few
years, but started leveling off around 2012 as e-readers grew more
commonplace. They even dipped slightly in 2013 but then rose 3.8 percent
to $3.37 billion dollars in 2014, according to the most recent stats
available from the Association of American Publishers.
Although the market has matured, it's
still a growing category for Amazon year-over-year, the company says.
(It doesn't, though, release sales figures.) Meanwhile, Amazon has
launched several other devices, including its Kindle Fire tablets, Fire
TV streaming stick and set top box, and the Echo smart speaker.
But dedicated e-readers help drive e-book sales at Amazon,
which publishes many itself via Kindle Direct Publishing. They can also
serve as a gateway drug that helps draw people to other goods and deals
on Amazon, including its Prime membership program.
"If you pick up a Kindle and read a book, eventually that
may translate into watching Prime instant videos, joining Prime, or
buying a physical book," said R.W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian.
You might wonder why Amazon keeps making more expensive Kindles, given that they do a lot less than the average tablet. In essence, they're intended to keep a demanding bunch happy.
E-reader users are on their devices 4 to 5 hours a week on
average, said Peter Hildrick-Smith, president of the consulting firm
Codex. They're far more dedicated than tablet readers, who only manage
about an hour a week.
With e-readers like the Oasis, Amazon is "looking to keep
their e-reading on the cutting edge," Hildrick-Smith said. "What it's
not doing is appealing to people who aren't already reading e-books."
Global preorders for the Oasis start Wednesday; the device
will ship on April 27. Amazon is still selling its basic Kindle for $80,
the Kindle Paperwhite with a high resolution display and adjustable
front light for $120, and the Kindle Voyage with page press buttons for
$200.
Amazon's latest Kindle mostly wants to disappear
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