Pew: U.S. tablet and eBook reader ownership jumps

Recent data released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that eBook reader and tablet ownership increased dramatically over the holidays driven by cheaper offerings from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

In fact, Pew found that ownership of both types of devices nearly doubled from a similar survey taken just prior to the holidays, in December. Pew reported that there was very little movement from the middle of last year into the early Fall, but the introduction of these lower-priced devices clearly had a huge impact on sales.

And a closer look at the numbers shows that both the eBook reader and tablet market--after developing slowly over the last couple of years--really took off this holiday season. In November 2010, the eBook reader market was at just 6 percent of adults, by mid-December 2011 it was up to 10 percent and the most recent figures for mid-January, ownership jumped to 19 percent.

Similarly, tablets stood at 5 percent in 2010, 10 percent in mid-December and the most recent figures were also up to 19 percent.

If this trend were to continue, and there's every reason to think it will, that means approximately 40 percent of U.S. adults could own one of these devices by this time next year.

Pew's results are based on a phone survey of 1000 adults from Jan. 5-8 and another 1008 adults from Jan. 12-15. Pew states there is a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points.

To view all the results and breakdowns by age, income, education and ethnicity (all are interesting):
-see the Pew report

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