The Motley Fool versus the Kindle

The Motley Fool logo

We live in an interesting time. In less than 20 years, Amazon’s grown from a no-profit bookstore into a giant that sells everything. And yet, is the company really earning a profit? I always enjoyed the analysis at The Motley Fool, which make questions like these sound like a fun bar-stool conversation. And this month they published a brand new article about Amazon’s Kindle tablets — revealing that when it comes to selling ebooks, movies, and TVs, Amazon has finally found a sweet spot.

“A year or two ago, it was hard to find much evidence that Amazon’s Kindle strategy was working as expected,” writes Adam Levine-Weinberg (a senior analyst for the Fool web site). Back when Amazon first launched their Kindle Fire tablets, it didn’t result in a massive increase in their sales of movies and ebooks. “Amazon’s North American media sales rose just 15% in 2012,” writes the analyst, “slightly below the 2011 rate and well below the growth rate of most of Amazon’s other segments.” And in fact, through June of last year, the growth in Amazon’s media sales actually seemed to be decreasing from what it had been in the previous year.

But by December, the year-to-year comparisons were telling a happier story. Over the previous 12 months, Amazon’s sales of e-books, movies, and TV shows grew by a whopping 21%. There’s an interesting caveat. Apparently Amazon actually earns three times as much money on “electronics and general merchandise” as it does on ebooks and media sales. But as things start to cool off on the gadget-selling business, investors will be delighted to see that Amazon’s actually selling more media to view on those gadgets…

Of course, the Fool hasn’t always been bullish about everything Amazon does — and it’s really fun to look back at what they’ve written about the company over the years. Back in 2010, they complained about the metaphors Amazon used to avoid giving specific numbers about how many Kindles they’d actually sold. One article complained it’s “like having a discussion with a kindergartner or a politician. They all tell you what they think you want to hear…but lack the details you really need to know before drawing your own conclusion!”

So it was a big deal in December of that year when Amazon finally did reveal a number — sort of. “Amazon still isn’t coming clean with how many Kindle e-book readers it’s selling,” the site reported, “but at least now we know that it will be in the ‘millions’ this holiday quarter alone.” They headlined their article “It’s Raining Kindles!” and soon there was even more big Amazon news. Last year a business analyst at The Motley Fool pointed out that people who join Amazon’s Prime program ultimately use Amazon for the majority of their online shopping, and end up spending more than twice the amount spent by non-Prime members!” (The average Prime member spends $1,200 a year on Amazon’s web site….) And with their latest increase in the sales of digital media, The Motley Fool reached the only conclusion possible.

“Amazon’s quest for long-term dominance in the market for books, music, and movies is back on track!”

Amazon vs. The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool logo

Last week, The Motley Fool site had a harsh message for stock investors. “Is Amazon Lying To You?”

“Reading Amazon’s press releases on Kindle’s greatness is like having a discussion with a kindergartner or a politician. They all tell you what they think you want to hear in glowing superlatives, but lack the details you really need to know before drawing your own conclusion.”

But fortunately, a new study may answer their question…

To this day Amazon has never announced how many ebooks they’ve actually sold, or even how many Kindle devices! So while the Kindle is a wonderful reading device, the investment site was challenging Amazon’s vague substitute claim that their ebook sales “continue to overtake” the sale of printed books. Amazon announced that in October their ebooks outsold print books for all titles in the top 1,000. But the investment site argued Amazon’s statistic is comparing ebooks only to the most expensive of the hardcover-only, new print books. (For example, the new autobiography of President Bush is selling for $18.90 as a hardcover book — but just $9.99 as a Kindle ebook.)

The Motley Fool concludes that Amazon “appears to be trying to mislead you,” though they leave open the possibility that Amazon is even more successful that it’s letting on. “[I]f you’re the best then rest on your laurels…” they advise Amazon. “Come on, Amazon. Show us the numbers!” But in July, one analyst calculated that actually Amazon still sells twice as many printed paperbacks as they do ebooks. (And in September, citing the same analyst, MIT’s technology blog reported that e-book sales “represent ‘only six percent of the total market for new books.'”)

Fortunately, there’s some encouraging new statistics on ebook sales from the Association of American Publishers. Wednesday they announced that compared to the previous year, book publishers sold 12.1% fewer printed books this September. The sales of adult hardcover books were down 40.4% in September, while there was a 23.6% drop in the sales of adult “mass market” books. And yet, the sales of ebooks continues to increase, racking up a year-to-date sales figure that’s nearly double what it was one year ago! They’re a trade association representing over 300 publishers, and collectively they’d reported $39.9 million in ebook sales just for the month of September…

At that rate, ebook sales for the next year would come out to a whopping $478.8 million! And there’s a few other conclusions you can draw from these statistics. The Motley Fool may be right in guessing people are more likely to buy ebooks instead of expensive hardcover and mass market books. And Amazon (and Barnes and Noble) have both sold more digital readers, so it’s not surprising that their owners are now buying more ebooks, creating an increase in this year’s ebook sales.

And yet, watch what happens when you calculate the current percentage of ebook sales to all book sales. Here’s the table of all the figures they’d reported in their press release

$180.3 million for hard
$111.5 million adult paperback
$76.6 million for hardcover children’s/young adult books
$67.8 mass market sales
$53.3 million children’s/young adult (paperback)

$39.9 ebook sales

It looks like ebook sales still represent just 7.53% of all book sales. So while ebook sales could reach half a billion dollars over the next 12 years — that’s still a small fraction of the $6.3 billion dollars in total book sales!