Financials - Page 3

Amazon has bought a startup named Touchco, who is working on new touchscreen technology. Their touch-overlay screen is completely transparent and can detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touch points.  It is also cheap - less than $10 per square foot. So, will the next-gen Kindle will have a touch display?

Via Engadget

There's an interesting interview with Sony's Fujio Noguchi, who supervises Sony's e-book business as a deputy president of the Digital Reading Business Division of Sony Electronics Inc. Here are the highlights:

• The new Reader is selling very good, in fact it's the best seller in SonyStyle (Sony's US online store).
• The Reader Touch Edition is the best seller amongst their readers (it costs $299).
• Sony knows that books can be read in many platform. That's why they focus on readability. They focus on electronic paper, and will not include color until the quality of the display is good enough. In fact they do not have any plans for a color e-reader because they are waiting for a color E Ink like display.

Yankee Group has released a new report, Yankee Group forecast that e-readers will generate $1.3 billion in revenue in 2010 and hit $2.5 billion by 2013. By 2013, there will be 36 million e-readers in the market. Yankee Group thinks that only when the price hits $150, will e-readers be really adopted widely. They forecast devices prices falling 15% each year in the next 5 years.

Via ZDNet.

Amazon has released some more information on the new applications for the Kindle (called Active-Content). Applications that are less than 1Mb in download, and require less than 100KB per month in traffic can be free. Applications that have a 1Mb to 10Mb download will require a one-time purchase fee (to offset the bandwidth usage). If the applications needs over 100Kb a month in traffic, you'll have to buy a subscription.

Amazon will take 30% of the revenue, with the rest going to the publisher. Via Engadget.

Currently, Amazon gives only 35% of e-book sales to the publishers. Now they intend to offer a new scheme that will give 70% of the revenue to the publisher. But only if the publisher plays by some new rules:

• Distribution costs are now paid by the publisher, but that should be on average a few cents per book.
• These books must sell for between $2.99 and $9.99 and must be priced at least 20% lower than a comparable physical copy of the book. (This is good news for readers, putting a greater incentive for lower-priced digital volumes.)
• The book must support the "broad set" of Kindle features, including text-to-speech.
• This will only be available for books that are in-copyright and only for those sold in the US.

CEA predicts that e-readers will continue to grow quickly, reaching 14 million annual sales by 2014. They also say that the market will double from 2009 to 2010.

Via MinOnline

Amazon says that the Kindle is the bestselling product - across all categories. There aren't any real numbers, but that's great news for Amazon. Amazon are selling two versions of the Kindle: The Kindle 2 (6" display, 259$) and the Kindle DX (larger 9.7" display, 489$).

Amazon kindle DX