According to a new report, Apple has sold a whole bunch of digital textbooks since it announced its new initiative in the nascent market.
Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry believes that more than 350,000 textbooks have been downloaded in the last three days.
That’s the period since Apple unveiled a new platform that allows textbook publishers to create interactive offerings through the iTunes App Store, encouraging learning for children of all ages.
“Apple’s decision to launch with introductory textbooks is a good decision as more than 50 percent of [the] textbook industry revenue comes from the sales of introductory books,” said Chowdhry in a research note.
Other players in the market have struggled to make waves in the e-textbook world. Amazon’s Kindle DX, which was supposed to be the company’s all-in-one gadget for college students, is seen as perhaps the only real Kindle flop.
Amazon even launched a pilot program for college students, offering them a free Kindle DX in exchange for feedback, and the results showed most students still preferred paper textbooks.
But Apple’s strategy is different; instead of going after the $100+ textbook range, it is focusing on bite-sized $15 books that are much more tailored to a digital platform.
As Chowdhry pointed out, “At $14.99, the textbook unit consumption market is 40-60 percent more than that of textbooks at $125.”
