Amazon Kindle is rumored to be pulling out of China? Why did a generation of "bubble cover" fall?

Recently, a "Kindle or withdrawal from the Chinese market" news rushed to the fourth place in the Weibo hot search list.

Some accounts broke the news that in the official self-operated store of Jingdong, in addition to the "youth version of 8G", the entire line of Kindle products is still on sale, and the rest of the models are all bizarrely out of stock, and there is no sign of replenishment. Netizens also found that as early as October 22, 2021, Taobao's Kindle flagship store has been quietly cancelled, which is considered to be a signal for Amazon's e-book business to withdraw from the Chinese market.

The anomaly of kindle online sales has caused people to discuss whether kindle really wants to withdraw from the Chinese market. Once, China was the world's largest market for Kindle equipment sales, but unexpectedly, in recent years, the Kindle has gradually lost its momentum. Before we talk about the decline of the kindle, we need to understand how the kindle used to "harvest hearts".

Although the Kindle is often jokingly referred to as a "special artifact for cover noodles", the reading advantages of kindle electric paper books are obvious compared to physical books.

The Kindle has the advantage of being easily accessible. As long as it is purchased on the Amazon website, the e-book can be directly pushed to the user's bound Kindle account device, compared to the physical book needs to be transmitted through logistics, the time for kindle e-book to reach consumers is greatly reduced, which can meet the instant reading needs of consumers.

The kindle has a large memory and an extremely long lifespan. It can store a lot of books, there is no function and other factors that need to be iterated, which also determines that the Kindle is a very practical e-reader product. Most importantly, Kindle's application of ink screen makes its reading effect closer to paper books, and it is still difficult to surpass the reading effect and endurance.

Ink screen has a peculiar technical principle, its surface is attached to a large number of "microcapsules", which encapsulates with negative electrons of black particles and white particles of positrons, through the change of charge, particles can present different arrangements, and finally form a text display effect. It is based on this that kindle's ink screen has a good sense of reading, does not cost electricity, does not hurt the eyes, can allow users to fully immerse themselves in text reading, and there is no difference between reading ordinary books, and it is very friendly to users who like to read for a long time.

Since the Kindle has so many advantages, why will it be idle and become a "special artifact for cover noodles" that is ridiculed? Black Bee Technology believes that from the perspective of external factors, the rise of auctions, strong fungibility, and users' time seized by rich media such as short videos are all reasons.

From the perspective of competitors, in addition to traditional hardware manufacturers such as Hanlin and Dr. Yi, manufacturers such as Palm Reading, Reading Text, Dangdang, and Xunfei have also entered the game, combined with the content ecology, and launched their own readers. The rapid response of local manufacturers to the Chinese market has squeezed out the living space of the Kindle.

Secondly, the popularity of smartphones and tablets has made the kindle more and more replaceable. Compared with the click-and-click WeChat reading, Jinjiang literature, snail reading, Douban reading and other APP in the mobile phone, Kindle prefers to be an independent "electric paper book" device, which is inconvenient to carry and cannot be used to fill the fragmented reading time anytime and anywhere.

In addition, in recent years, the rise of short videos, mobile games and other entertainment methods, the appeal brought by static text is far lower than the color-rich and instant short videos and games that are more interesting, which has also led some users to switch the time of Kindle reading to other parties.

From the perspective of internal factors, the Kindle's momentum in the Chinese market is fading, and in the view of BlackBee Technology, its system is too closed and the lack of resources also occupies the main reason. For some unspeakable reasons, the Chinese books in the kindle's repository are not rich enough and too expensive, and unlike other reading platforms, they have not precipitated enough content ecology in the Chinese market, and the use of "electronic libraries" cannot be continued. The reluctance to change is the main reason for business failures.

Looking back at the history of Kindle development, in 2007, Amazon launched the first Kindle e-book reader; in 2011, the global shipment of kindle reached a record high of 2320 units; in 2016, China has become the largest sales market for kindle in the world; in 2022, the news that kindle is about to be delisted in China was announced. Watching China's digital reading market grow step by step, and then compared with the kindle's encounter, it is not without sighing. Black Bee Technology believes that in the final analysis, the emergence and demise of a thing has its own laws, and the eternal thing is that no matter how popular it once was, only by constantly iterating itself to keep up with the times and user needs can we always stand at the head of the tide, which may be the last bit of enlightenment that Kindle gave us.