Ebook sales overtake books on Amazon UK

7 Aug 2012

Amazon UK’s latest figures show that sales of ebooks for its Kindle devices are now higher than sales of the physical product.

The online retailer claims that for every 100 books sold on Amazon.co.uk in 2012, 114 ebooks have been sold. Amazon also claims that Kindle owners in the UK are buying four times as many books as they were before they owned the device, the Guardian reports.

Amazon’s ebook sales have been lifted by the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, which has reportedly beaten the final instalment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to become the best-selling book on Amazon.co.uk ever. These sales account for both ebooks and hard copies.

The Kindle e-reader is one of Amazon’s bestselling products, selling at a low price so that the company relies on revenue coming in from media sales through the device. It is rumoured that Amazon has five or six new devices in development.

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com