Only if you were flying transatlantic the whole day, could you have missed the brilliant lights of reality distortion field hovering over the privileged earth yesterday. Oh wait, I was. Someone who tried to avoid it while being on terra firma — an admirable task — was Douglas Anmuth, analyst at Barclays Capital. In a research note this morning on Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), in light of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPad launch, he puts it thusly: “The Kindle is still significantly cheaper & will continue to appeal to somewhat of a different market given advantages like E-Ink screen, smaller form factor, better battery life, & lower weight.”
His main points:
— Total cost of owning an iPad (assuming a $30 monthly data plan and 3 yr product life) is roughly 6x-7x the cost of Kindle 2 (priced at $269 and likely going lower). Also, with an E-Ink screen, smaller form factor, lower weight, and better battery life, the Kindle may appeal more to serious book readers
— While AMZN still dominates the e-book mkt & has an edge in selection, AAPL could emerge as AMZN’s first major e-book competitor as it sells more iPads and adds new publishers to its store.
— AAPL’s support of e-pub could further increase the pressure on AMZN to abandon its proprietary format putting at risk lucrative lock-in revenue.
