Hindustan Times On Kindle – A Look At The Future Of E-Readers
E-Readers are quite a new phenomenon in India with Amazon’s kindle being available for sale here recently. But that didn’t stop one of the leading newspapers in India to jump onto the e-reader bandwagon.
HT Goes the Kindle Way
India’s English daily Hindustan Times became the first newspaper to be available globally available on Kindle. Now this is a big move and also a sign of times to come in the publishing space the world over. Imagine a world where you are traveling by bus on the roads of Mumbai or Delhi with a kindle in hand to read your newspaper? Fascinating isnt it? Also your credit card or e wallet would be charged a monthly fee for reading the same.
US & UK Here We Come
Mumbai and Delhi is not what Hindustan times is gunning for from their point of view this product is targeted more at the US and UK audience. Sanjoy Narayan, Editor-in-Chief, Hindustan Times has said, “Putting Hindustan times on the Kindle will now enable readers across the world to get access to the paper wherever and whenever they want to, in a convenient easy-to-carry format.”
2010 – Year Of The E-Reader?
One wonders what would be the growth rate of such E-readers and how soon mainline publishers would have to start taking distribution via these devices seriously? Well.. Gartner has some answers. Gartner recently carried out a study on the growth of E-readers stated that it expects the year 2010 to be the year of e-readers! “With the entry of new players, such as Barnes and Noble, into the e-reader market and an increase in models from Amazon and Sony, consumers began to have choices in single-purpose e-reading devices in 2009,” said Allen Weiner, research vice president, Gartner.
Pricing Key To Growth?
Gartner also said that pricing would play an important part in the future success of e-readers. It said that the current pricing of $199 needed to fall to about 99$ for significant consumer traction to come in.
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