Credit Suisse is the latest analyst group to throw out some unsubstantiated guesses about the ebook market, eliciting coverage today. The news in the report is their contention that “Google is also reportedly working with HTC (maker of Google’s Nexus One phone) on a tablet device. While few details on this device are public, images of the Chrome OS on a new tablet device appeared on Google’s Chromium website, sparking the speculation that the Google tablet is closer to launch than most expect.”
Statistically, their big forecast is that within five years Amazon’s ebook market share will decline as they share the market with Apple and Google. Much of their statistical information comes from Al Greco’s Institute for Publishing Research, along with CS’s own estimates. They guess that Amazon sold $135 million in ebooks last year, for example, and give Amazon 90 percent of the current ebook market. They say that ebooks comprised one percent of sales last year and expect it to be three percent of sales in 2010–but both of those estimates lag almost all other appraisals of the market’s size.
In contrast, Goldman Sachs’ proprietary survey from earlier this month found that Kindle owners comprised 63 percent of ereader owners, and estimated that 6 percent of regular book readers own a device. And a much more thoroughly documented report from Lazard last month estimated an installed ereader base of 4 percent. They estimated Kindle ebook sales for 2009 of $194 million.
Elsewhere, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, T-Mobile announced that they will offer HTC’s new oversized touchscreen smartphone HD2–with a 4.3-inch screen–for later this spring. It will feature Barnes & Noble’s eReader app and ebookstore.
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T-Mobile page
Finally, Bookeen announced they that will ship their Bookeen ereaders to the US and UK markets this May.
ZDNet