Hot US E-book reader market will spark $2.5 billion in revenue by 2013

BOSTON, USA: Yankee Group forecasts that the already hot US e-book reader market is about to catch fire, sparking from $1.3 billion in revenue in 2010 to $2.5 billion by 2013.

In “Yankee Group’s US E-Book Reader Forecast: Kindling a Fire,” analyst Dmitriy Molchanov shows that as devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony’s Reader, Interead’s COOL-ER and enTourage’s eDGe adopt more palatable price points—Yankee Group sees $150 as the sweet spot—the market will respond in kind.

“Unlike the iPod, which hooked serious music buyers in addition to a raft of casual listeners, e-book reader adoption will be limited to heavy readers only—at least until prices come down,” Molchanov says. “But we see the average price of e-book readers declining by roughly 15 percent per year for the next five years, resulting in 55 percent increase in adoption rate year over year.”

In fact, by 2013:

* US e-book reader sales will reach 19.2 million, a CAGR of 34 percent, with 6 million e-book readers sold in 2010 alone.

* The US installed base of e-book readers will hit over 36 million, up from an installed base of 9 million by 2011.

* Half of all consumers who indicate interest in buying an e-book reader will have bought one already, so device makers should act quickly.

E-book readers are the leaders of what Yankee Group calls “Anywhere Devices,” a new class of connected products explored in our research and new book ANYWHERE. We expect a host of consumer Anywhere Devices to follow in their wake.