Kindle For Android Shows Amazon Getting Aggressive
Amazon's Kindle e-reader has thus far been the class of the e-reader market, having exited 2009, according to Forrester Research, with a 60 percent share of the U.S. e-reader market.
As Amazon's success has grown, however, rival e-readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook and Plastic Logic Que have arrived to challenge, and Apple, with its just-released, briskly selling iPad, is poised to outgun all dedicated e-readers.
By ensuring Amazon's Kindle store appears on Android devices, Amazon is not only hitching its Kindle wagon to one of the hottest -- some say the hottest -- mobile platforms around, but also ensuring its key Kindle brand stays visible on a wider range of devices in the hands of many more consumers.
"Kindle for Android is the perfect companion application for Kindle and Kindle DX owners, and is also a great way for customers to enjoy over 540,000 books in the Kindle store even if they don't yet have a Kindle," said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle, in a statement. "We think customers are going to love the convenience and simplicity of having instant access to a massive selection of books from Amazon on their Droid, Nexus, Incredible and many more Android devices."
Amazon claimed much of the e-reader limelight a year ago following the February 2009 release of its second-generation Kindle, and the May 2009 release of Kindle's larger brother, the Kindle DX. At the time, however, Amazon ensured that Kindle also saw life as an application for iPhone and a range of other mobile devices -- in other words, getting the Kindle store and Amazon's e-book retailing model in front of consumers, even if they didn't buy a Kindle.
Amazon's branding strategy is now playing out for Android devices, which will soon join Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Macs, desktop PCs and Research In Motion's BlackBerry platform as computers and mobile devices with a Kindle app available. According to Amazon, users can now synchronize the last page they've read of an e-book between multiple devices, be they Kindles themselves, iPhones or BlackBerries.
Getting the Kindle brand in front of as many eyes as possible will be crucial to keeping Amazon strong in the e-reader game. Not only does iPad pose a viable threat to Kindle the dedicated e-reader, but Google's forthcoming Google Editions -- also set for release this summer -- promises to be another big-name disrupter for the e-reader market.
Amazon's expansion of the Kindle app to Android devices -- as well as recent announcements like its end-of-May plan to update Kindle and Kindle DX with new software to synch with social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter -- should certainly help that mission.