There is no competition for the Amazon Kindle

Amazon is the undisputed leader in developing and maintaining its Kindle e-readers and digital bookstore. They have a market share of 75% in the United States, 95% in the United Kingdom, and are the dominant player in Australia and Canada.

Everyone else who sells e-readers and digital books is fighting over the scraps in these countries and everywhere else. Rakuten Kobo is Amazon’s closest competition as a brand that sells e-readers, e-notebooks, and digital books. They operate in the same countries as Amazon targets. They have a cadre of bookstore partners that sell the devices and earn a percentage of each e-book that a customer purchases, making it an attractive option. Barnes & Noble sells the NOOK brand of e-reader in the USA, but with aging hardware and buggy software, its sales are seeing a decline.

Since Amazon is so popular, they are in the news quite often. Whenever they discontinue a software feature, introduce new features, or make a minor mistake, everyone is up in arms. Earlier this year, they stopped allowing for book downloads with USB Transfer and then implemented a new DRM system that disallows book downloads and encryption breaking. They are at war with pirates and jailbreaking software.

Since many people in the e-reader and e-book wars do business with Amazon, they feel extra slighted and threaten to leave the Amazon ecosystem and move to greener pastures. However, the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence.

Rakuten Kobo has been stagnant for a couple of years. They have not expanded into any new markets, have slowed down on firmware updates, and rarely introduce new features or enhancements. In fact, they are limiting the user experience. They disallowed the ability to attach more than one library card per Kobo account, eliminated Pocket, and shifted towards Instapaper, which is far less functional. They have not released any new hardware in a couple of years, except for some new color variants. Their sole e-notebook, the Elipsa 2e, hasn’t had a model refresh in over 2 years.

Barnes and Noble used to be Amazon’s closest competition in the United States, but lost all of their market share during the whirlwind years where it seems every year or two was a new CEO, and executive team who had different expectations of the NOOK and selling e-books. Sometimes, people were interested, and a few new models emerged, along with some updated software. However, 2-3 years would often pass, and management would often show apathy towards the entire digital endeavor. Since they have now been sold to a private equity firm, they have righted the ship, and new NOOK models are expected to be released sometime in 2026. However, they use Android as their operating system, along with woeful internal hardware and software that hasn’t undergone a major revision, ever; the future doesn’t look bright.

Some smaller brands, such as Remarkable, Onyx Boox, Pocketbook, and Meebook, are not as well-known among the average user. Remarkable does one thing well: note-taking and nothing else. BOOX devices are all really expensive, run Android, and have Google Play, but never update Android on older devices, and quickly become irrelevant. Pocketbook tends to release new hardware every couple of years; some models are good, some are bad, but they all feature page-turn buttons, SD card slots, speakers, and Bluetooth connectivity. Their bookstore is abysmal, but their hardware and software are polished. They are primarily intended for users who already have e-book collections they wish to sideload.

Everyone else

There are a few other brands that sell e-books, but they don’t typically make e-readers. Apple Books is big on the iPhone, since you can buy audiobooks and e-books right on the app, and prices are in parity with other digital retailers. Since various lawsuits have plagued Apple for years, Kindle, Kobo, and NOOK now allow for in-app purchases.

Google Play Books is also popular, as you can purchase audiobooks and e-books directly on Android devices. However, the same lawsuits that affected Apple also impacted Google. This has led to some major e-book players reverting to in-app or off-app purchases of digital content.

There are smaller, more regional players. Tolino is popular in German-speaking countries, Readmomo and Hyread are popular in Taiwan, and Sony still sells e-books in Japan.

Wrap Up

There is a reason why Amazon is the most popular E-Reader. They have the biggest hardware and software team in the industry. When they release new products, it’s an event, with a glitzy product unveiling in New York or Seattle. This ensures wide media coverage with traditional and digital-first publications. Take the recently announced Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, which was the most popular e-reader story for the past two weeks.

Whenever you’re invested in an ecosystem and a hardware brand, it is easy to get angry if they do something you don’t like. Take the new iOS 26 update with Liquid Metal. Almost everyone hates it, but few people hate it enough to flee to Android or a Linux phone.

It’s the same with the Kindle; where else is there to flee to? Everyone else has way more cons than pros. When Kindle removed those features, many people bought a Kobo, used it for a few weeks, and then returned to their Kindle. This sentiment was echoed all over social media.