Financials

Amazon reports good Black Friday Kindle sales - in fact they say total Kindle sales increased 4X compared to last year. The Kindle Fire is still Amazon's best selling product - for over 8 weeks in a row (since its introduction on September 28th).

Amazon wouldn't release any figures, but they did say that even before the weekend they sold "millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire". Interestingly, they say that a lot of customers are buying multiple Kindles (some probably as gifts to others).

IDTechEx published an interesting post in which they forecast that the e-reader market will grow from 30 million units in 2011 (about $750 million in revenue) to 70-90 million units (or $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion) in 2017. IDTechEx says that 70 million units will come from the leisure reading market mostly. If the education and business market takes off, it may mean another 20 million units per year in 2017.

IDTechEx says that text books for schools could be a very large opportunity - and may even double the sales of leisure reading. This isn't taken into account in the optimistic scenario. IDTechEx also expects new display technologies such as Liquavista's (now Samsung) Electrowetting technology and Qualcomm's Mirasol to enter the market soon.

According to an iSupply teardown, the Kindle 2011 costs $84 to make - which means that Amazon is actually losing $5 on each ad-supported device sold - which cost $79. The $84 is the cost of materials and assembly - it does not include royaly/license fees and shipping costs. Obviously Amazon is hoping to make money from ad revenue and from book/software sales.

The most expensive component in the Kindle is the 6" E Ink display module - which costs $30.5 according to iSupply.

Japan's Rakuten acquired Toronto-based Kobo for $315. Ratuken is one of Japan's largest e-commerce companies with over 70 million users, and it also has holdings in worldwide web companies such as Buy.com and Lekutian in China.

Kobo Vox tablet

Barnes & Noble announced a narrowing in first quarter losses - on a 2% hike in sales, largely from its e-reader product line. They say that plan to to continue investing in the significant growth areas of their business - digital sales.

The Nook Touch is getting great reviews and it's apparantly selling quite well. The Wi-Fi version is now shipping for $139.

3M announced that it invested in Germany's txtr, via its 3M New Ventures and 3M Electro & Communications Business. Txtr is developing e-book stores and reading applications for iOS and Android. We do not know how much money 3M invested, but txtr's CEO Christophe Maire said that the investment was 'considerable'.

txtr abandoned e-reader prototype

txtr also developed an e-reader device but abandoned that project towards the end of 2010.

Entourage closed down their online store, and stops selling their e-reader device (the eDGe and the Pocket eDGe). Users have to download their content until May 27th before it is deleted.

enTourage eDGe

The company is still operative, and apparently working towards a slate device.