Could iPad and Kindle Be The First Tech Products To Be Propelled By Older, Early Adopters?

January 31, 2010 | By Kim Walker

The launch of iPad has many speculating about it’s impact on older markets, but the impact of e-readers on the older market is already well known.

As the chart indicates, already a full 37% of all Kindle users are 55+. Kindle may be the first general purpose technology device in which the early adopter demographic favors the over-54 age bracket instead of the usual 18-34 age bracket, effectively turning one perennial marketing trend on its head.

No wonder, “Reading” consistently shows up as one of the favourite pastimes of older consumers, worldwide. The Kindle was one of the most common 2009 Christmas presents for this group, and Amazon’s e-books outsold paper books for the first time on Christmas day.

The “Seeking Alpha‘ blog goes as far as suggesting that during the next few years demographics will split the e-reader consumer base into two camps, with the 35-and-up going with Kindle (boomers over 55 in particular) and the 18-to-34 (especially Generation Y) with the iPad. Alpha supports this conjecture with several observations:

• Boomers will prefer the low price, simple lines, keyboard and the fact it is “grandchild proof.”
• Older/more serious e-book readers don’t want a multifunction device with an LCD screen. They spend far too long staring at those screens for work and want to read normally, by ambient light. Kindle also uses a low-power e-Ink screen and offers much longer battery life.

Although I’ve not yet had the opportunitity to ‘play’ with either the Kindle or the iPad, I respectully differ with ‘Alpha’ view because;

1. Apple’s philipsophy is all about simplicity of use. This is precisely what attracts older customers to Apple’s products, not just the computers, but the iPhone as well. If the same design philosophy has been carried through to the iPad (as it appears to have been) then it will attract older buyers for the same reason.
2. The higher price of the iPad relative to the Kindle will not be an obstacle among most older users in Asia. After all, we spend much time arguing about the relative wealth of older people compared to younger folks, why wouldn’t they spend an extra few hundred dollars for the iPad?
3. The manner in which Steve Jobs demonstrated the iPad while seated in a cushy low-slung chair. He was not seated at a desk or table the way you would use a computer. He was using it in the way he envisions people using it: in a casual setting, like a living room, a bedroom, or perhaps an airport lounge. Apple clearly wants potential buyers to think of the iPad as a casual entertainment device.
4. Finally and most importantly, its marketing. Plain old availabilty. A year after its launch in the USA, Kindle is still not available through ‘legitimate’ distribution channels in Asia. If you want one, you need to order from the USA. Yet, just a few days after launch in the USA, there’s a ‘Coming Soon‘ holding page on the Asia Apple Store websites.

Watching how Apple evolves their iBook software and store will be intruiguing. Again, I predict that in Asia, ‘simplicity’ will win over ‘cost’ in this race. Apple has it, hands down.