Publishing Milestone: "Amazon Kindle E-Book Sales Top Print"

From Bloomberg:

Amazon.com Inc. now sells 105 books for its Kindle electronic-readers for every 100 printed books.

Sales of the e-books for the Kindle, introduced in 2007, surpassed hardcover titles in July 2010, and overtook paperbacks six months later, the Seattle-based company said today in a statement.

“We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive officer, in the statement.

Here’s the Complete News Release from Amazon.com.

Highlights:

• Since April 1, for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books. This includes sales of hardcover and paperback books by Amazon where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher.

• So far in 2011, the tremendous growth of Kindle book sales, combined with the continued growth in Amazon’s print book sales, have resulted in the fastest year-over-year growth rate for Amazon’s U.S. books business, in both units and dollars, in over 10 years. This includes books in all formats, print and digital. Free books are excluded in the calculation of growth rates.

• In the five weeks since its introduction, Kindle with Special Offers for only $114 is already the bestselling member of the Kindle family in the U.S.

• Amazon sold more than 3x as many Kindle books so far in 2011 as it did during the same period in 2010.

• Less than one year after introducing the UK Kindle Store, Amazon.co.uk is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books, even as hardcover sales continue to grow. Since April 1, Amazon.co.uk customers are purchasing Kindle books over hardcover books at a rate of more than 2 to 1.

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