Is the Kindle just for girls? An interesting study on the sales of the Kindle just came out, showing that women are about 63% more likely buy a Kindle than men! As a male who owns and loves a Kindle, I found this interesting and a bit unusual!
It should be noted, this same study revealed the trend that we have discussed for a while – that e-reader sales are up and continue to go up despite a poor economy. That means that both men and women both are using the Kindle more often these days, which is good news for the industry.
At any rate, I found it unusual to hear that the Kindle has so many more female users. I know that the demographic of this site is heavily female, so I guess I could have inferred it, but what is causing this gender discrepancy?
I think there are a couple of things that might be at work here -
1. It is more acceptable for women to walk around with a book to read to restaurants, public places, etc. People do not expect men to do the same, right or wrong. I also wonder if men are less comfortable carrying a Kindle around in public compared to women in general. If so, this might be keeping some men from making a purchase.
2. In our culture, other studies have shown that men read less than women overall. A recent study showed that women are 80% of the audience for fiction books, and yet another study showed that women read three times as many books in a lifetime than men do overall.
Now, those are just complete guesses on my part. I would have thought that men’s overall penchant for gadgets in our culture would have trumped the fact that less men read and would have made the numbers a little more even. The same study did show that more men have iPads than women, which would support that idea, but still, the numbers here are overwhelming!
What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Are you a male like me who owns a Kindle? I would especially like to hear from you what you think is causing this gender difference. Let us know in the comments!
It should be noted, this same study revealed the trend that we have discussed for a while – that e-reader sales are up and continue to go up despite a poor economy. That means that both men and women both are using the Kindle more often these days, which is good news for the industry.
At any rate, I found it unusual to hear that the Kindle has so many more female users. I know that the demographic of this site is heavily female, so I guess I could have inferred it, but what is causing this gender discrepancy?
I think there are a couple of things that might be at work here -
1. It is more acceptable for women to walk around with a book to read to restaurants, public places, etc. People do not expect men to do the same, right or wrong. I also wonder if men are less comfortable carrying a Kindle around in public compared to women in general. If so, this might be keeping some men from making a purchase.
2. In our culture, other studies have shown that men read less than women overall. A recent study showed that women are 80% of the audience for fiction books, and yet another study showed that women read three times as many books in a lifetime than men do overall.
Now, those are just complete guesses on my part. I would have thought that men’s overall penchant for gadgets in our culture would have trumped the fact that less men read and would have made the numbers a little more even. The same study did show that more men have iPads than women, which would support that idea, but still, the numbers here are overwhelming!
What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Are you a male like me who owns a Kindle? I would especially like to hear from you what you think is causing this gender difference. Let us know in the comments!
Regardless what gender difference might exist, Kindle sales are still going up!
Credit : http://www.kindleowners.com/
