Amazon.com, the largest online book retailer, sold more digital books than hardback titles in the second quarter.
From April to June, the company sold 43 percent more digital books for its Kindle handheld device than hardback books, nearly three years after the electronic format became available, it said in a statement on Monday.Last month, digital books outsold hardbacks by 80 percent. The company did not provide total sales data for either format.
The figures did not include paperback sales, which represent more than two-thirds of the market by revenue, according to the Association of American Publishers.
Sales of e-books, as they are also called, have been boosted by a drop in the price of the Kindle hardware, according to Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos.
"The growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 (R1 970) to $189," he said.
Kindle books can also be read on competing hardware devices such as Apple's iPhone or iPad, or laptop computers.
Of the 630 000 e-book titles available for sale on the Amazon website, more than 510 000 cost less than $10, the company said.
Amazon did not include downloads of its nearly 1.8 million electronic titles available free of charge. It is due to report second-quarter earnings late tomorrow.
