English|Kindle is Staying in China, But Will its Success Story Continue?( 二 ) English

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Amazon recognizing its instant noodle cap status with its commercial
The commercial line with a sarcastic tone might be written to make potential customers laugh and catch their attention but it did point out Kindle’s awkward status as well. Many users would not actually use Kindle that often after purchase. That is why some users would use their Kindle to cover their cup noodles and did not care about whether it damaged their device.
Not all users like this norm.

“Some people say Kindle is best used for covering cup noodles. This is interesting,” a netizen wrote on social media. “Everyone is talking about it like some kind of joke. But it is actually embarrassing. What is there to be proud of for buying Kindle and only using it to cover cup noodles?”

The problem with Amazon’s e-reader business in China is that people are investing less time in reading. “The problem here is the decline of books, including e-books. There have been drastic changes in how people consume information. Short videos and short-form content have changed how we receive information,” a netizen said on social media. “Only some professionals would actually read books now.”
No longer a niche productChanges in consumer behavior led to the change of perceived utility of Kindle.
The e-reader device originally had three features that appealed to consumers. First, Kindle devices all use e-ink displays that provide a comfortable reading experience similar to that of reading an actual book. Second, Kindle has limited functions, which help users avoid distraction and fully immerse themselves in books. Lastly, Kindle has access to Amazon’s growing e-book library while being extremely light.
These advantages match Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos’s opinion on Kindle as a product. Bezos believes that Kindle needs to be a serious cultural medium in order to be a successful product. However, Kindle’s situation in China shows that the product also needs to keep up with consumers’ changing habits so as to be successful.
Chinese Academy of Press and Publication‘s 18th national survey results show 43.4% of Chinese adults prefer reading an actual book, while 33.4% of adults prefer reading on their smartphone. Only 8.6% of respondents said they read books on an e-reader device. Survey respondents who preferred listening to audiobooks accounted for 6.7% of the surveyed.
Such statistics show that when it comes to reading on an electronic device, smartphone is the option for the majority of users. The popularity of listening to audiobooks is also catching up with reading on e-readers. Although e-readers are still enjoying growth in the market, the growth has been slowing down when compared with smartphones and audio books.
Besides, e-readers have their own flaws as well. Let us look at Kindle for example. Users can only read e-books from Amazon on a Kindle device. In addition, e-ink displays have low refresh rates, which inevitably makes e-reader device appear to be laggy. Reading PDF files and picture books on a Kindle device is not enjoyable as well since it can only display two colors – black and white.
Kindle is appearing to be an outdated product like music players that were stifled by the rise of smartphones. Smartphones are getting bigger displays with a better viewing experience while encompassing an array of features. It is natural for e-readers like Kindle to be outcompeted in the market.
In 2020, Chinese adults spent 100.75 minutes on their smartphones on a daily basis, while the average use of e-readers was merely 11.44 minutes.
Kindle’s biggest challenge lies in its core competitiveness as a product, according to pundits of the tech industry. It does not provide a smooth user experience that modern users have gotten accustomed to on smartphones while focusing on a very niche market. These are the reasons why it is expensive for Amazon to operate its Kindle business in China.