E-tailer Amazon has been leading the charge for electronic books almost as long as anyone with their Kindle lineup, so it should be a surprise to no one that the company is now selling more e-books than print books -- at least across the pond.
Amazon has announced a milestone for e-books, with the online retailer confirming that Kindle books are now outselling print books in the United Kingdom. The more surprising aspect of this announcement is that this milestone falls on the second anniversary of the Kindle's arrival there.
In 2012, Amazon.co.uk has sold 114 Kindle books for every 100 print books -- numbers that include sales of hardcover and paperback books sold by the e-tailer where to Kindle edition currently exists. Free Kindle books were excluded from the data, but obviously, e-books would have outsold print by even higher numbers if those had been included.
“We hit this milestone in the U.S. less than four years after introducing Kindle, so to reach this landmark after just two years in the U.K. is remarkable and shows how quickly U.K. readers are embracing Kindle,” said Jorrit Van der Meulen, vice president, Kindle EU. “As a result of the success of Kindle, we’re selling more books than ever before on behalf of authors and publishers. And thanks to Kindle Direct Publishing, thousands of self-published authors have also been given an outlet to share their work with the millions of Kindle readers worldwide.”
Amazon UK's figures also show Kindle readers buy four times the number of books they did prior to owning the e-reader -- and it certainly doesn't stop them from buying print books, which they continue to do.
Amazon.co.uk launched its paperback sales in October, 1998 and didn't start offering the Kindle until nearly 12 years later, in August, 2010. That's a pretty amazing climb for e-books in only two years!
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