Author: Jia Hui
Kindle, from the white moonlight of Wenqing to the bubble noodle cover of social animals.
Wenqing, who grew up with the kindle, has now become a social animal running for the future. /Figureworm Creative
When "kindle or will withdraw from the Chinese market" rushed to the top of the hot search, many people remembered that there was also a kindle in their drawer that was "eating ash".
On January 4, some netizens found that the domestic kindle product line had an abnormal situation, and the kindle products of the official self-operated store had a large area of shortage. On the Jingdong self-operated flagship store, except for a low-end model, the kindle series of products are all out of stock. As soon as the news came out, speculation was rife: Is this a signal that kindle is going to withdraw from the domestic market?
In this regard, Amazon China officials also responded quickly: "We are committed to serving Chinese consumers." Consumers can purchase Kindle devices through third-party online and offline retailers. ”
There is a large area of shortage of goods in the Jingdong kindle self-operated store, and only a youth version of the e-reader is on sale. /JD.com
The shortage of kindle products does not only occur in China, and even a large number of kindle products on Amazon overseas shopping are currently generally out of stock.
It turned out that it was only due to the lack of chips in the manufacturer, not the removal or "delisting". This can make China's Kindle users breathe a sigh of relief: "The bubble noodle artifact has finally been saved." ”
The kindle focused on improving the reading experience may not have changed much over the years, but China has already changed dramatically.
Kindle can be used not only to read books, but also to read comics.
Kindle, the essential "chicken rib" for readers
I still remember that in 2007, when the first generation of kindles came out in the United States, the limelight was unparalleled, although the price was as high as 399 US dollars (according to the exchange rate at the time, close to 3,000 yuan), but it was sold out within 6 hours of listing.
After all, in the era of Nokia, an electronic screen that can simulate a paper book does give people endless surprises and imagination.
However, the first generation of kindle, whether in appearance or technology, is actually slightly "cold". Rough white plastic casing, 6-inch electronic black-and-white screen, only 250MB of memory.
At that time, it was estimated that no one could have predicted that it was such a small black-and-white screen that could help Amazon win a beautiful turnaround battle in the future, transforming from a discounted bookseller to becoming the world's largest book retailer.
In 2013, the kindle e-reader officially entered the Chinese market. In just 3 years, China has become the world's largest market for Amazon kindle device sales.
China is an important market for Kindle's business. /Interface x data cable
The kindle has also quickly become the white moonlight of a group of literary and artistic youth who "love to read", and have held a kindle in their hands as a "secret code" for identity recognition.
Now, more than ten years have passed, and the literary and artistic young people who wandered around cafes, campuses, and libraries have now become social animals running for their lives. In order not to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy kindles, it had to be used to cover instant noodles.
Since 2007, 15 years have passed, and the iPhones that were also "born" in 2007 have been updated and iterated to the 13th generation, and the kindle is still like an old man trapped in time, lackluster in innovation.
You can think of this as the focus of the kindle, which has only been obsessed with bringing users an immersive reading experience comparable to paper books for so many years, but it can also be interpreted as a kind of "not thinking ahead".
In China, kindle represents a kind of human design, a way of life.
Over the years, the most impressive innovation of kindle is only the "chicken rib" function such as supporting PDFs, connecting to wifi, adding reading light functions, and adjusting cold and warm color temperature, which are dispensable for reading itself.
The latest generation of kindle Oasis and the previous kindle Paper white still have no breakthrough upgrades in technology, but they have changed the metal material, added a physical page turning key, and upgraded the processor.
And many of the problems that really affect the user experience and are reflected the most are still not solved: the page turning is obvious, the reading speed is too slow, the ink screen is easy to bump and damage, only the black and white screen color effect is supported, and the color picture book cannot be presented... Kindle can no longer bring users freshness and buying impulses.
It is still very inconvenient to use kindles to read PDFs.
The "chicken ribs" in hardware innovation not only make consumers lose the desire to update, but also gradually forget the existence of kindles and become useless "decorations".
At the end of 2021, Idle Fish selected the "Top Ten Useless Commodities of 2021", and the e-reader ranked third, and the reason for winning the award was "a relatively expensive instant noodle peripheral".
However, nowadays, it is more and more convenient to order takeaway, and for kindle, the future may not even have the opportunity to cover the instant noodles.
As a digital product with a high idle rate, various versions of kindle occupy the "half of the country" of idle fish and second-hand digital categories.
Kindle in China, water and soil are not satisfied?
In fact, before rushing to the first place in the hot search this time, kindle had already quietly "retreated".
In 2019, Amazon's Chinese website only retained the Kindle e-book and overseas purchase business, and other self-operated e-commerce businesses, including Kindle hardware sales, withdrew from the Chinese market.
In October 2021, the official Amazon Kindle Tmall flagship store closed and has not yet been restored. Nowadays, kindle hardware only has one sales channel in China, JD.com's self-operated flagship store.
In November 2021, Amazon China's Kindle hardware team was completely eliminated. The industry estimates that Amazon will entrust a third party to provide after-sales service for existing Kindle users to transition until the end of the warranty period for all users.
Therefore, judging from Amazon's series of actions in recent years, it may be too early to "withdraw from the Chinese market", but it is traceable to pay less attention to the Chinese market.
According to Amazon China vice president in 2017, in the Kindle Unlimited e-bookbag monthly service, China is the third largest market after the United States and the United Kingdom. /Interface x data cable
This kind of "retreat" may not be all active, but probably passive.
Kindles in China always seem to be "unsatisfactory".
Research agency iSupply has disassembled the kindle 2 released in 2009, iSupply analysis estimates, does not include software, design and other expenses, kindle parts and assembly costs have reached $185.49, and sold at $189, there is no profit.
In recent years, the pricing of the new version of kindle has been reduced year after year, and the price of the sixth generation of kindle launched in 2012 has been as low as $69, while the price of kindle's main products in China is about 600-1000 yuan.
For kindle's profit model of "acquiring users with hardware and making money with virtual products", kindle's hardware sales profit is only secondary, and the most important source of profit is the sales of e-books in the kindle mall.
Judging from the forecast data, the vast majority of kindle's profits come from the sale of e-books. /Interface x data cable
However, for the "miraculous" Chinese, this set of kindle cannot be played.
We don't seem to be so comfortable with the price we can buy a physical book to buy an e-book that can be seen but not touched. Book resource websites, PDF transcoding, sharing among friends... We have so many ways to find the books we want to read without relying on Kindle's e-book store.
What's more, the Chinese books in the kindle e-book mall are not comprehensive enough, and many niche good books are not included.
Most Chinese have not yet developed the habit of paying for "high quality" and are still obsessed with finding cheaper or even free alternative services. For them, "experience" can be sacrificed, and "affordability" is the biggest pursuit.
And this is exactly contrary to the business philosophy of kindle.
The kindle of the reader eventually became a prop to cover the bubble noodles.
The era of the kindle, is it a thing of the past?
"Internal worries" have not yet been solved, but "external troubles" have always been around the kindle.
From Founder and Shanda Literature to today's iFLYTEK, Palm Reading, and Wenshi Reading, domestic e-book brands grow like wild grasses, "wildfires burn endlessly, and spring winds blow and grow again".
The kindle's competitors are far from only e-books, but also a variety of evolving "screens": mobile phones can be loaded with WeChat reading, Douban reading and other reading APPS, which are ready to come, lingering, or free.
Increasingly feature-rich tablets not only have electronic reading capabilities, but also facilitate the writing of records, and even enter the color "ink screen".
The endless stream of domestic e-readers continues to impact the status of the Kindle. /Interface x data cable
The up-and-coming listening app is also changing the reading habits of users little by little, and there is a great momentum of catching up with e-readers.
For the e-book industry giant Kindle, perhaps hardware innovation can still be worked on, user consumption habits can be slowly cultivated, and competitors can also rely on their own irreplaceability to knock down one by one, these so-called "dilemmas" are not enough to be afraid.
But the kindle also has one of its deadliest "enemies" – the times.
In 2019, the 17th National Reading Survey showed that the reading volume and reading time of adult paper books in China have declined.
The average adult read 4.65 paper books, slightly lower than the 4.67 in 2018. The number of e-books read per capita was 2.84, down 0.48 from 3.32 in 2018.
Yes, Chinese become less likely to read, which is the three-inch life of the Kindle in China.
The subway is full of "low-headed people", and it is difficult to see the figure of books again.
On commuting faster and faster, not many people can resist the temptation of mobile phones; after more and more heavy work, not many people can refocus on a book; in the face of the pressures of life, reading has really become a luxury.
If you want to reverse the decline of reading, I am afraid that the kindle can not do it alone.
At that time, Xiang Yu was trapped under the siege, the soldiers were short of food, isolated and helpless, and at night, he heard the songs of Chudi on all sides, mistakenly believing that the Han army had already occupied Chudi and that the Chu army had gone nowhere. Xiang Yu, who was once invincible, suddenly lost his fighting spirit, and after saying goodbye to his beloved Yu Ji, he killed himself by the Wu River.
The kindle, who is now working alone in China, is not like the besieged Chu army, hesitating whether to embark on the journey home.
Reference articles
[1] In addition to pressed foam noodles, kindle may be really worthless in China丨 Lei Technology
[2] Amazon Kindle "Lost Favor": Why Did It Go From Being All the rage to Falling Out of Favor? 丨NBS new products slightly
[3] WeChat Reading Kills Kindle 丨 New Entropy
[4] What does China mean for kindles? 丨Interface News