Prime View International (PVI), the Taiwanese company that bought Cambridge, MA-based eInk last year and is the leading manufacturer of display components used in the Kindle and several other ereaders, anticipates now that as many as 10 million ereaders could be shipped in 2010, reports Digitimes’ Susie Pan from Taipei. Prior to this statement by PVI chairman Scott Liu, most estimates of 2010 ereader shipments have been around 6 million.
It is not known whether PVI’s projections are intended to include figures for 2010 shipments of non-dedicated devices such as Apple’s new iPad, which is slated to begin shipping in late March and by some accounts could account for sales in the 3 to 5 million unit range in 2010.
So, if the US book publishing industry’s BS Cabal (the Big Six publishers and Apple’s Steve Jobs) continue to base their strategies on a belief that they can resist the ebook revolution and pursue collusive anti-consumer pricing and content withholding schemes, one wonders:
- How much money they will leave on the table before they get it?
- How many independent and/or traditionally published authors will just decide to connect directly with new technology platforms like the Kindle’s Digital Text Platform in order to make their books available and cut out the middle men so that they can enjoy all of the coming 70 percent royalties?
- How many readers will reject the traditional publishers’ roles as gatekeepers and arbiters of taste, gradually shift their attentions to more and more independent authors and publishers?