For a mature market, the device type is still doing fairly well

Jul 18, 2012 12:36 GMT  ·  By

Hearing that shipments of a certain product dropped by over half compared to the previous year could send those directly involved into a panic, but e-readers are exempt from that.

Not to say that there aren't worried parties. There have to be, when Q2 sales drop 63.1% compared to the April-June period of 2011.

Still, shipments did rise, on-quarter, by 5.5% (the number was 1.53 million), which means that the phenomenon is not an indication of the device type being obsolete.

The simple fact is that 2011 was still part of the first so-called “wave” of e-book reader purchases. There isn't much of an incentive to change to a new one now, so shipments will hover at this level.

As such, that on-year shipments fell is more indicative of the market having reached maturity.

B&N, Amazon, Kobo and other o their kind will have to focus on keeping their market share from now on.