Kindle Share of Ebook Reading at 55%

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) says, according to studies by Bowker Market Research (@Bowker & @DiscoverBowker), as of June, Amazon’s Kindle reading devices were used to read ebooks by 55% of ebook buyers.

Since its introduction in late 2011, Amazon Fire’s share of ebook reading has risen quickly and hit 18% in June. Some of its gains came at the expense of other Kindle devices, but the combination of dedicated e-readers and tablets gave Amazon its highest market share ever, topping the 49% the company had in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Through its iPad and iPhone devices, Apple had a 15% share of e-reading in June, up from 13% in June 2011 with the gain coming entirely from iPads as the use of ebook reading on iPhones fell by two percentage points in the year-to-year period. Barnes & Noble’s Nook devices had a 14% share in the second quarter, a figure that has held steady since the fourth quarter of 2011, but was down from a peak of 22% in the third quarter of 2010.

Read this in full.

The research suggests fewer ebook buyers are using computers to read ebooks, but that conflicts with a survey by Pew Research Group (@pewinternet), “Young People Read Ebooks Mostly on Their Desktops & Laptops.”

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