14 DAY TRIAL // E-readers have been growing in popularity at a fairly rapid rate over the past few months and not only have such devices seen tremendous sales, but hardware makers have even begun to launch new devices in this category, finally setting the basis for price competition. While the number of sales and the revenues received from selling such products speak for themselves, the NPD Group market-tracking firm decided to conduct a survey to see just how happy end-users were with their devices. The result was rather positive, with only 2% of all owners expressing any kind of disappointment.
“Both the display technology and available content on e-book readers are optimized for those interested in books. Pairing these optimizations with wireless technology for transparent access and touch screens for easy navigation has resonated with the avid readers that have been early e-reader adopters,” Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis at NPD, said.
The study shows that the percentage of owners that were either somewhat or very satisfied with their e-readers amounted to no less than 93%. In fact, the only area that seemed to leave anything to be desired was that of content availability. While 46% of owners expressed an overall satisfaction with the selection of titles available in electronic format, only 39% of all those questioned said that they had found all the books they were interested in. 42% expressed a clear desire for a larger content availability.
As far as hardware was concerned, the feature that was ranked the highest by 60% of all owners was the wireless connectivity, while touch input held the second place with 23%. Still, e-reader owners did say that they would like to see certain improvements, such as a longer battery life (39%) and color screens (34%).
“As we have seen with music, photos and video, books and other printed matter are slated to appear on a wide array of devices that offer tradeoffs in such factors as screen size and battery life. As the recent introduction of Apple's iPad demonstrates, applications now on smartphones benefit from larger screens, and industry leaders are recognizing the importance of supporting multiple platforms by supporting multiple clients and open standards,” Mr. Rubin added.
The market for electronic reading devices is believed to be just about ready to surge during 2010. Still, for this to occur, manufacturers of such devices will have to meet the customers' expectations, especially considering the fact that three out of ten users revealed that they also used other devices for reading books, such as smartphones or PCs.