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70 percent of Kindle owners over 40?

It may not be a scientific poll, but some tabulations from an Amazon.com discussion thread indicate that the Kindle and Kindle 2 are skewing heavily toward Baby Boomers and seniors.

David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
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David Carnoy
2 min read
Amazon's marketing to a more youthful audience, but the older set are the early adopters. Amazon

Back in March, I did a post titled, "What's the average age of Kindle owners?" I cited a thread in Amazon.com's forums discussing Kindle owners' ages.

Well, I have a little follow-up on the whole issue. Apparently, someone went ahead and tabulated 700 of the responses in that Amazon thread (that represents about 75 percent of all the posts) and broke out the numbers. Here they are:

  • 0 - 19: 5%
  • 20 - 29: 10%
  • 30 - 39: 15%
  • 40 - 49: 19.5%
  • 50 - 59: 23%
  • 60 - 69: 19.5%
  • 70 - 79: 6%
  • 80+: 2%
    • We can't call this the most scientific poll ever taken, but it's probably a good indicator of the Kindle's age demographic. If you add it all up, over half the owners are over 50 and 70 percent are over 40.

Like I said in my previous post, if you look at the Amazon thread, a lot of senior folks bought the Kindle--and now the Kindle 2--partially because the digital reader is easier to handle than regular books for arthritis sufferers. It also helps that you can increase the font size, if you have trouble viewing small print in books.

Amazon is in a bit of battle with publishers who tend to think that e-book sales are cannibalizing their print books sales. However, as the blog Marginal Revolution points out, comments from seniors saying they're able to read more now that they own Kindles helps "Amazon's pseudo-statistical case that e-book purchases are incremental/additive, rather than cannibalistic of their print sales."

I agree. Any Kindle owners, young, old, or young at heart, feel the same way?

Update: Kindle Culture has an even more complete breakdown of the posts on that Amazon thread.

(Source: Publishers Lunch Deluxe via Marginal Revolution)