iBookstore: 250,000 eBooks sold during the first day

After a brief hiatus from blogging I am ready to record and publish my thoughts again. So over the last weekend the Apple iPad was released in the United States. The new product was eagerly anticipated by analysts and consumers. Why, I am not sure. The golden rule with anything created by Apple is 'Do not buy the first generation!'. You are just going to loose out when the price drops and features are added to the device in the subsequent iteration. That aside the product seems to be a hit as an ebook reader.

On the 5th of April Apple announced in their press release sales information for the previous weekend reporting that 300,000 iPads where shipped.

April 5, 2010—Apple® today announced that it sold over 300,000 iPads in the US as of midnight Saturday, April 3. These sales included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads to customers, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded over one million apps from Apple’s App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day.

Quote 1: Apple Sells Over 300,000 iPads First Day, credit Apple Inc..

I think that the most interesting point of the excerpt above is that over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore where sold during the first day of operation. I believe this demonstrates an appetite for the consumption of digital publications on a multi-purpose tablet devices. The Amazon Kindle is an interesting product but I feel that the functionality is limited. I am extremely interesting to see how quickly the iBookstore reaches 1 Billions downloads. I imagine this may take less than twelve months if eBooks are as compelling as Apps. The App Store reach One Billion in Just Nine Months.

Apple is most certainly a consumer electronics and content distribution company. This is a formidable combination with increasing power to shape the entertainment market. I think that it is going to be interesting to see whether eBooks on the iPad take off in the coming weeks and months. It may do much to reinvigorate reading with younger member of society.

Links

1. Apple Sells Over 300,000 iPads First Day
2. Apple’s Revolutionary App Store Downloads Top One Billion in Just Nine Months

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.