September 1, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team
Reading is one of those activities that bridges the gender gap. While their book interests may vary, men and women of all ages love to read. And the most recent explosion in the popularity of devices like Amazon’s Kindle and the Nook Color has made reading even more popular amongst multiple markets, even kids. But according to the most recent Nielsen reports, women account for an impressive portion of the e-reader population. In 2010, women accounted for 46 percent of all e-reader owners. Today, that number has exploded to 61 percent.
According to Nielsen, the most recent research data confirms the growing popularity of e-reader devices. The number of tablets that women are adding to their shopping carts has grown slightly, from 39 percent of total ownership in 2010 to 43 percent in 2011. Smartphones are another category where the female population was lagging slightly. Last year, women accounted for 47 percent of all smartphones, and today they own right around half of the total number of smartphones in operation.
This news comes at an interesting time for many of the major retailers. In light of the recent TouchPad shopping cart debacle, tablet manufacturers are realizing that appealing to a higher-end, predominantly male marketplace may not be the best approach. As more and more women are adding tablets and e-readers to their shopping carts, manufacturers are looking at appealing to the growing marketplace with hybrid devices.
Amazon is rumored to be preparing its own tablet, which it intends to use to challenge the Apple iPad’s current reign as the number one tablet. According to a Reuters report, Apple has sold over 30 million iPads since the product was released in 2010. The Amazon device is expected to cost far less than the iPad, and will likely appeal to an already established e-reader fanbase who have been using Amazon’s Kindle devices since they were released in 2007. Amazon will also be looking to appeal to a younger crowd than it currently caters to. Right now, eReader owners tend to be a little older, with 30 percent over the age of 55. An Amazon tablet could bridge the age gap, where Nielsen reports just 19 percent of tablet owners are 55 or older.
The popularity of e-readers has also helped to make e-books much more popular. What used to be readable only on laptops in PDF form is now accessible from anywhere in the world. By July 2010, more Kindle books had been placed in users Amazon shopping carts than hardcover books. Six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Now, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books combined. What’s even more impressive is that free Kindle books are not included in those statistics. Kindle also recently introduced a Daily Deal style sale on one Kindle book each day. The Kindle Daily Deal features some of the bestselling authors such as Kate DiCamillo.
“Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly – we’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years,” said Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.
Taylor is originally from Washington, DC, but has lived in the Seattle area for the past 5 years. He’s a senior at the University of Washington, studying Political Science (with no interest in entering the political world). He’s more interested in the Tech industry, especially consumer electronics, cloud computing, and how mobile internet and devices will change the business world. He spends most of his free time tinkering with his Subaru and surfing whenever possible.
I think part of the reason for this trend is the fact that so many of the ebooks now (especially those that are offered free) are for women. There is a large number of romance novels on the Kindle device that women are able to get for free, and this could be driving up sales for this demographic.