Waterstones is removing Amazon's Kindle devices from its shelves due to "pitiful" sales of e-readers. The space taken up by Kindles will be filled with paperback books, according to The Bookseller. "Sales of Kindles continue to be pitiful so we are taking the display space back in more and more shops," said Waterstones managing director James Daunt. "Sometimes, of course, they 'bounce' but no sign yet of this being the case with Kindles," he added.
The removal of Kindles from store shelves shouldn't come as a total surprise. In January Waterstones reported that its 2014 Christmas revenue was hit by poor Kindle sales. Factors contributing to this are likely to be market saturation, everyone who wants an e-reader already has one, and a lack of desire to upgrade to newer models.
That's a view shared by David Prescott, CEO of Blackwell's, which stocks Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader: "We're not seeing a great deal of people who are buying an e-reader for the first time now [...] People are buying e-reader replacements, but that's it," he told The Bookseller.
In the US e-reader sales have been declining for some time. In September 2014, Barnes & Noble revealed that revenues from its Nook division, fell 54 percent compared to the same quarter in 2013.
An Amazon spokesperson said the online retailer was "pleased with the positive momentum and growing distribution of Kindle and Fire tablet sales".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
