Kindle books now outselling paperbacks

Amazon still isn't saying how many Kindles it's selling, but the company says sales of Kindle titles have now surpassed sales of paperback books.

Online retailing giant Amazon.com has released its financial results for its fourth quarter of 2010, which ended back on December 31. The company is still keeping a tight lip about how many Kindle devices it has sold (using only the term “millions”), but it has divulged another interesting Kindle-related item: sales of Kindle books have now overtaken sales of paperback books on Amazon.com, making the Kindle book the top book format the company sells. Amazon also saw a net 36 percent increase in sales to a whopping $12.95 billing for the fourth quarter, with operating income of $474 million. The overall numbers show Amazon’s business is strong, but the relatively low margin generally failed to impress investors.

The quarter also saw Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reduce his stake in the company from 21.2 percent to 19.5 percent.

“We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in a statement.

Amazon had previously forecast that Kindle titles might overtake paperback sales in the second quarter of 2011. As surprising as sales of Kindle books surpassing paperback sales more quickly than Amazon estimates is news that Amazon is still seeing growth in paperback sales—apparently, there are circles where reading is still socially acceptable. Since the beginning of 2010, Amazon says it sold 115 Kindle editions for every 100 paperbacks it sold.

Part of the drag on Amazon’s short-term margin are the company’s ongoing activity to bring over a dozen new distribution centers online; Amazon says it plans to launch more distribution centers as well. These costs, in addition to pricing pressures during an aggressive holiday buying season actually means that Amazon’s $474 million profit for the quarter is a slight drop compared to last year.

Use Your Kindle for Free Overseas Browsing on 3G [Kindle]

Use Your Kindle for Free Overseas Browsing on 3G

The Kindle is great for reading books on-the-go, especially when travelling. However, what some people don’t know is that you can also browse the web on your Kindle’s 3G for free—even internationally.
Photo by bfishadow.
I was in Canada recently, where, as a user of AT&T, I would be charged extortionate rates to send/recieve texts or use any data whatsoever ($15-20/MB and $.25 to send/receive a text (if I remember correctly)).
Communication being opted out, I go to read on my Kindle. There I too receive a notification from Amazon about international data.
I read through it, and find—to my shock—that using the kindle browser internationally is free (as in ‘free beer’, not as in ‘free speech.’ or maybe both).
I then go to fire up the browser and find that good ol’ Google Voice worked and rendered (generally) just fine on my Kindle. So I removed my mobile forwarding number, sent out a mass text from Google Voice to reach me there, and ended up texting enough over my brief trip to save $30+ compared to if I had used my phone.
I think that it’s likely that this would work in any of the other Whispernet-available areas so, next time I go to Europe, my Kindle is definitely on the packing list for more reasons than ‘can read on it.’
A warning: It can be kinda harsh on the battery, so remember to (a) have a way to charge it available, and (b) turn wireless off when you’re not using it!
I don’t have a Kindle nor a plane to immediately test this out on, but a quick Google search reveals that a lot of other customers are discovering the same thing. Whether you knew about this already or not, it’s pretty darn handy—all of a sudden that “experimental” Kindle browser looks a lot more appealing than Chrome on your laptop or Safari on your phone.