Author Stephen Peter’s has published an interesting piece of research he conducted as part of writing his book, “Kindle Culture“: who actually buys and uses the Kindle? While his research method is hardly scientific (he polled users of the Amazon Kindle User’s forum), the demographic skew is significant enough to warrant discussion:
As Stephen notes:
The resulting data suggests that the largest group of Kindle owners by decade are in their 50s. The next two largest are owners in their 40s at 19.1% and owners in their 60s at 18%, making the total number of Kindle owners between the ages of 40 and 69 an incredible 58.6%. Owners above 70 make up an additional 8.1%, with owners under the age of 40 accounting for just over a third of all Kindle sales.
This is actually quite a surprising result – most new gadgets are typically purchased and used by younger consumers. Is it because older users are more likely voracious readers? Or are they traveling more, and hence enjoy the ability to carry multiple books. It would appear other players in the e-book space would be wise to follow-up on Stephen’s work to understand the answer to these question if they hope to dominate the market.