Jeff Bezos: iPad & Kindle Are Really In Different Categories

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Ever since the iPad and iBooks store was unveiled, and the following price war between Apple and Amazon and the price of eBooks – people have wanted to pin the iPad and Kindle as rival products. It’s not really a competition, I mean the iPad has a big color LCD screen where as the Kindle has a sorta biggish monochrome e Ink screen. But, Amazon CEO and tech icon Jeff Bezos doesn’t seem them has rival products.

Here’s what Bezos said in an interview with Fortune magazine.

Fortune: Obviously, the Kindle’s price drop was in response to Barnes & Noble’s price cut on the Nook. Did the iPad and its overnight success play a role, too?

Bezos: No. The iPad… I think there are going to be a bunch of tablet-like devices. It’s really a different product category. The Kindle is for readers.

Bezos goes on to say the the Kindle really is just a means for them to sell eBooks. Unlike Apple, who uses iTunes and iBooks to sell hardware, Amazon is using the hardware (Kindle) to expand their eBooks store. The Kindle has always been about the books.

Amazon is one of the top three booksellers in the United States (with Borders and Barnes & Noble). They’re hedging their bets by investing in eBooks (as are the other two) and the Kindle is a lossleader for them. Or, I’ll let Bezos himself explain it. From the same Fortune interview, Mr. Bezos said:

Our strategy with the ebookstore is ‘buy once, read everywhere.’ If you want to read on your iPhone, if you want to read on your BlackBerry. We want people to be able to read their books anywhere they want to read them. That’s the PC, that’s the Macintosh. It’s the iPad, it’s the iPhone. It’s the Kindle.

The Kindle store accounted for 80% of eBook sales last year. Apple claims that iBooks has taken 22% of the US market so far this year. We’ll see what the final numbers look like when they come in.