Barnes and Noble sees e-books taking over in 2 yrs

Barnes & Noble executive Marc Parrish in a presentation at GigaOM's Big Data Conference predicted that e-books would dominate book sales in an absolute sense in two years. He expected the industry to "totally shift" sometime within the period based on a combination of rapid device adoption and usage habits. About 18 million e-readers should be sold this year versus just 900,000 in 2009; 30 percent of US readers look at both digital and paper books, according to Forrester and Gartner research.

The claim has largely been supported by digital retailers' own progress. Amazon's Kindle book sales outran paperbacks in January, months ahead of when it expected. Apple also said at its iPad 2 introduction that it had sold over 100 million books since the iBookstore opened in sync with the iPad in early April.

Barnes & Noble itself has been shy on e-book sales numbers but touted an excellent holiday quarter that it owed primarily to both Nook hardware and e-book sales through its own shop.

The paper book has been one of the few holdouts in the digital era and has been helped by its continued usefulness in airplanes and other areas where powered devices aren't practical. However, readers have usually cited the sometimes better book pricing and the sheer conveniences of size and weight as motivators. E-books can also now increasingly bring in new features such as contextual knowledge, online sharing and video.

By Electronista Staff