Apple rode to the rescue of the publishing industry when it said it planned to sell e-books for $12.99 to $14.99 as it launches its iPad tablet computer. The Apple price points pressured Amazon to raise what it charges for e-books to keep publishers from pulling their content from the Kindle maker.
But, it turns out that Apple may not have been so generous to publishers and that the $9.99 price that Amazon has charged will be the industry norm–at least for best-sellers. The New York Times reports that “Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers — so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon’s $9.99.”
An analyst from Credit Suisse recently forecast that the market share of the Amazon Kindle would drop from 90% of the e-reader market today to 35% five years from now. That projection was in part based on the notion that Amazon would have to raise its e-book prices and lose a critical competitive advantage. Apple may make the issue of price academic and that puts Amazon back into the driver’s seat when it comes to e-book sales.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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