Amazon sees sales of Amazon Kindle by 80 percent to Rs 1,138 Crore in the year up to March

According to a report in Economic Times, sales of Amazon Kindle rose by 80 percent to Rs 1,138 Crore in the year, up to March. According to the report, the source is documents filed by Amazon Seller Services. The report does not mention what documents were filed, or where they were filed. The SEC filings by Amazon can be accessed here, the Annual reports and Proxy statements can be accessed here. Amazon does not disclose specific information on revenues of its various products. We have reached out to Amazon for comments and will update the story accordingly. The increase of Kindle sales is actually at 200 percent according to a report published in back in February 2016 on GadgetsNow. Users all over the world tend to read more ebooks than physical books once they have access to a reader. In India, users apparently consume 10 times the number of physical books after starting to use Kindle. In the US, the increase is only four times. The size of the market, the introduction of new sales channels, and the availability of local regional language content are considered to be the main reasons that Kindle does well in India.  India is a vociferous consumer of books. Indians spend more time reading books than anyone else in the world. The NOP World Culture Score keeps track of global media consuming habits, and notes that “Consumers in India are most likely to spend time reading, at an average of 10.7 hours per week, followed by consumers in Thailand and China (at 9.4 hours and 8 hours per week respectively).” According to a report ( PDF) on the market for books in India by Frankfurt Book Fair, an annual event, ebook sales and ebook reader sales are poised to grow in India. According to the Nielsen  _The India Book Market Repor_t, book readership in India is poised to explode because of a massive, young and increasingly mobile population. Distribution of physical books to remote regions of the country is a logistical nightmare.  Amazon has a catalogue of over three million books. You can read any of them for a subscription price of Rs 150 per month. The cheapest Kindle available right now on Kindle is at Rs 5,999.  Amazon has a wide variety of content from Indian publishers on offer. Every month, the site puts up a selection of ebooks that are discounted by a minimum of 60 percent. These are called the Kindle Monthly Deals. The books are available in  many Indian languages incluing Hindi, Tamil and Marathi . This allows Amazon to reach into the untapped regional and rural market in India. Flipkart, the only other major ebook vendor in India exited the market in 2015. Infibeam Pi , an Indian ebook reader stopped selling in 2012. [caption id=“attachment_354989” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”]  The Infibeam Pi[/caption] This means that the Amazon Kindle enjoys a practical monopoly in the country, both in terms of hardware and content. There is just no attractive alternative for the Kindle in India. The only potential competition are those who offer ebooks through applications on smartphones. Juggernaut is one such Indian app , which had an interesting entry, with a catalogue of original titles by Indian Authors. It is also a digital-first platform and has features such as conversing with the author of books, serialised novels and more. [caption id=“attachment_311045” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Juggernaut has on offer original content, but not really competition in terms of catalog size[/caption] Amazon has a consistent strategy for improving operating efficiency to lower prices for consumers. The prices are updated every day, and includes attractive shipping offers. The checkout is fast and easy, and tuned for impulse purchases. Amazon uses a number of approaches to ensure reliable and fast delivery of products. Most of the revenue of the device is realised at the time of the sale, the remaining is accrued over the life cycle of the device, through sales of content and services. Apart from the web store, Amazon offers the kindle on sale in hundreds of retail outlets across the country.