Color Kindle several years away
Amazon’s CEO says readers shouldn’t expect to see a color version of the Kindle any time soon. He also refused to give any sales figures for the electronic reader device, but admitted it is yet to turn a profit.
Speaking at the firm’s annual shareholder meeting, Jeff Bezos confirmed Amazon is working on a color Kindle but warned that it would not be ready for many years. Previous reports say E Ink, the firm which provides the technology behind the Kindle screen, doesn’t expect to have a color screen available until at least 2011.
While it might seem like a pointless development for most books, a color version of the device might help boost sales of subscriptions to full-color newspapers and magazines.
Asked how many Kindles Amazon has sold to date, Bezos simply said the device was turning into something special. He refused to give any details and said it was unlikely he’d ever release numbers: “Our point of view is that there is a competitive advantage to keeping the numbers close.” (The Wall Street Journal quotes estimates that 500,000 Kindles were sold last year, with another 300,000 in the first quarter of 2009.)
Bezos also confirmed that Amazon is still losing money overall on the Kindle, but that this is not a surprise and that the firm does not expect to make an overall profit on the device in the first three years after its release. He also said the Kindle sells mainly though word of mouth, saying a major marketing budget was unnecessary because, “Advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service.”
The theme of Bezos’s presentation appeared to be Amazon’s environmental record. As well as touting the way the Kindle saves paper, he noted the firm has cut down on excessive packaging, and eliminated some unnecessary power use in its corporate offices, including saving $20,000 on power bills by removing a lightbulb from vending machines. Bezos also argues Amazon’s delivery set-up is inherently more fuel efficient than bricks-and-mortar shopping by individual consumers.
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