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Digitimes says that Amazon shipped around 750,000 E Ink kindles in January 2013 and 420,000 in February. They expect shipments to drop to only 20,000 in March and April.

E Ink says that the drop in sales in January and February was expected as this is a slow season. Sales should pick up in Q2 and Q3. E-reader shipments though are expected to slow in 2013 due to increased demand for tablets.

E Ink posted their January 2013 revenues ($87 million - a 82% increase over January 2012), and the company says that e-reader market segment remains strong.

Kobo says they have added 4 million users in the last 6 months, bringing it to a total 12 million registered users. They have sold "millions" of readers in 2012 (including the Kobo Glo, Kobo Mini and also Kobo tablets) - and December was great with sales of E Ink e-readers growing almost 150%.

Kobo says that their market share is around 20% of the global e-reader market. IDC says that the total e-reader market in 2012 was 20 million units, which means that Kobo sold around 4 million e-readers in 2012.

According to E Ink Holdings chairmen, Scott Liu, global demand for e-readers will keep growing in 2013. While the north american market will have "mild growth", the emerging markets (including Japan, Europe and Brazil) will boom.&

E Ink says that orders from major e-paper clients were strong in the second half of 2012. The e-reader market dropped about 28% in 2012.

Research firm IDc says that e-reader sales declined 28% in 2012 - despite the fact that e-reader variety grew, and the prices dropped. ID says that almost 20 million e-readers were sold in 2012 (in 2011 the number was 27.7 million).

One of the reasons for this decline is that a lot of people already own e-readers (almost 20% of Americans own an E Ink e-reader) - and there's isn't really any compelling reason to upgrade your old e-reader to a new one, even with today's low prices.

According to eMarketer, e-readers (devices with e-paper displays) still enjoyed a strong growth in 2012 - 44.2% in fact compared to 2011. They expect e-reader ownership to continue moderate growth in coming years. It is estimated that 50 million Americans used an e-reader at least monthly in 2012.

IHS iSupply says that e-reader shipments in 2012 will reach 14.9 million units, down 36% from 2011 (23.2 million). Shipments are expected to continue and fall to 10.9 million in 2013, and only 7.1 million in 2016. iSupply say that the rapid growth and collapse of the e-reader market is "virtually unheard of", and is explained by the success of the multi-function tablets.

The pressure to keep costs down will be extreme and e-reader makers are expected to continue to sell devices at cost or even at a loss. Amazon (and B&N) has a large advantage here because they can still earn from selling e-books. Other makers will have to find different business models (for example txtr hopes to get mobile telecom subsidiaries for its $13 Beagle reader).