Amazon’s e-books take off during Christmas

According to Amazon itself, the online bookstore has sold more e-books than traditional paper books this Christmas. The firm does not comment on specific numbers. So far, it has not spoken out on the number of Kindles, Amazon’s own e-reader, it has sold. ZDNet recently estimated that Amazon would by now have sold around 1,5 million Kindles.

In The Netherlands, sales of the Kindle are less than spectacular. Amazon does sell them here, but is not actively marketing Kindle sales in this country. Bol.com, the biggest online bookstore in The Netherlands, on the contrary, is quite active in promoting Sony’s e-reader. Recently, the company reported that it had sold “many tens of thousands of digital books”.

The trade in e-books is not yet very profitable, though. Amazon loses about two dollars on every title sold. The publishers charge around 12 dollars for most current e-book titles, while Amazon sells them for around ten dollar. Amazon is willing to take this loss in order to claim a big market share.