Electronic book readers – under 10,000 yen reasonable to four in five
Although all electronic book readers in Japan have died a death since the very first one in 1990, with even big manufacturer-backed models like Panasonic’s Sigma Book and Sony’s Librie failing, Amazon’s Kindle and even Sony’s western models are flying off the shelves. To see if there are any signs of life in the Japan market, iBridge Research Plus looked at electronic book readers in a report published on japan.internet.com.
Demographics
On the 28th of December 2009 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were male, 11.7% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, 31.0% in their forties, 16.7% in their fifties, and 9.3% in their sixties.
For me too the current price of around 20,000 to 30,000 yen for the average reader is a bit much, especially as most companies haven’t got the interface quite right yet, judging from the reviews. As to why people are setting their price tag so low, perhaps it has something to do with the already-established user-base for mobile phone-based reading material?
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