Apple’s decision to bundle its iBooks e-reading app in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite has paid off in a big way for the company as it tries to compete with Amazon’s dominance in the e-book market. Keith Moerer, the director of iBooks, told an audience at the Digital Book World conference in New York that the company has added 1 million new users to iBooks every week since the launch of iOS 8.
It’s big news for Apple, which hasn’t been able to unseat Amazon from its position of dominance over the e-book market since launching iBooks alongside the iPad in 2010.
Moerer also took the opportunity to highlight differences between Apple’s business model and Amazon’s at the conference, GigaOm reported. While he didn’t mention the Seattle tech giant by name, Moerer highlighted that Apple’s commission terms are the same for independent authors and large publishers: the company takes a 30 percent cut of book sales, no matter the price. That’s a marked difference from Amazon’s more complex pricing scheme.
It’s unclear yet what the impact of the new users will be on Apple’s overall position in the e-book market. Amazon still has a commanding chunk of it, but Moerer’s appearance at the conference makes clear that the Cupertino-based company won’t be backing down from its digital bookshelves any time soon.
