While Amazon is claiming that it controls 80% of the e-book market share, RR Bowker is stating that the digital retailer controls a comfortable 61% with Barnes & Noble coming in at second with 20%, followed by Sony and Apple, each with 5%. In terms of e-reading devices, Amazon’s Kindle has 40% market share and the computer is the second most popular reading device.
According the the study, about half of the e-books downloaded are free titles, though readers are becoming more acclimated with the digital version. 50% of all readers are now reading entirely on digital devices, giving up entirely of the paper version.