Amazon unveils slimmer Kindle reader, same price

NEW YORK, USA:  Online retailer Amazon.com Inc unveiled a slimmer version of its Kindle digital book reader on Monday, with more storage and faster page turns, but kept a high price tag that could discourage mass adoption.

The new Kindle, still priced at $359 on Amazon's website http://amazon.com/kindle2, is available for preorder and will ship Feb. 24, the company said. Amazon shares were down about 1 percent at $65.94 in midday trading on NASDAQ.

Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay said the new Kindle was an improvement, but its price showed Amazon was not moving aggressively to make the device mainstream.

"Really we don't see them as having taken the device to the next level," he said. "We think it's an incremental step of improvements. They're advancing very conservatively."

The device is a tiny part of Amazon's web retail business, but attracts out-sized interest from investors and analysts as a potential source of new growth.

The company may not want to push the Kindle too quickly so it can preserve a much higher revenue base from printed books and avoid direct competition with other electronics devices such as Apple Inc's iPod, analysts say.

The new Kindle is "thinner, faster, crisper, with longer battery life and capable of holding hundreds more books," said Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.

"Our vision is every book ever printed in every language -- all available in less than 60 seconds," said Bezos, speaking to an audience of about 300 at New York City's Morgan Library.

While the previous Kindle could store over 200 titles, the new version holds over 1,500 and includes a feature that reads text aloud to users, Amazon said. Also on Monday, Amazon said Stephen King, the best-selling author of horror stories, will release a novella, "Ur," exclusively on Kindle.

Customers awaiting their first versions on back-order will be automatically upgraded to the new Kindle, Amazon said.

Kindle Fixes

First launched by the Seattle-based company in November 2007, the Kindle allows users to read books and newspapers wirelessly on a device weighing less than a typical paperback.

It took sales from Sony Corp, whose Sony Reader beat Amazon to market, and Amazon touted its existing relationships with book publishers as a plus. Most bestsellers cost $9.99 on the Kindle and newspapers are also available.

The latest model of the Sony Reader retails for about $400 and holds about 350 digital books. It can play MP3 and AAC digital music with headphones.

Kindle users had criticized the device's clunky design and complained about the placement of its buttons, lack of backlighting, slow page turns and high price.

The new version fixes a problem with involuntary page turns and sports a five-way controller that allows users to jump between articles and sections of newspapers. A power charger is more portable and a cover that comes with the device is more secure, the company said.

The new "text to speech" function converts words on a page to speech. Users can choose a male or female voice to read to them and choose a speed.

The company has not disclosed Kindle sales figures. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney has estimated Amazon sold a half-million Kindles in 2008, about one-third more than the number of iPods sold by Apple Inc in its first year.

Barclays Capital's Douglas Anmuth said that, if the Kindle made inroads in the educational market, it could generate $3.7 billion in revenue and $840 million in gross profit in 2012.

Lindsay estimated that 2 million Kindles sold by 2012 would drive a 0.6 percent drop in Amazon's total revenues because of the cannibalization of book sales. But new content revenues and lower shipping charges would boost 2012 earnings per share by 9 cents, he said.