70% of Kindle owners are over 40

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 1 May 2009 at 14:22

The vast majority of Kindle owners are over 40, according to an informal survey.

The conclusion was drawn by Stephen Peters on his Kindle Culture blog. Peters is writing a book on the Kindle and as part of his research trawled through the "Average Kindle Owner's Age" thread on the Amazon Kindle forum.

After correlating information from 300 posts, Peters discovered that around 21% of posters identified themselves as being between 50 and 59. The second largest group (19.1%) were in their 40s, with the third largest (18%) in their 60s.

All told, the poll indicates that a staggering 58.6% of Kindle owners are between the ages of 40 and 69. At the opposite end of the spectrum, young adults between 18 and 34 make up a paltry 22% of Kindle owners.

Though Peters admits the findings are unscientific, he argues they still have worth: "There are plenty of factors that could skew these results, ranging from affluency and disposable income to the overall age of visitors who visit Amazon's boards," he writes on the blog.

"But if these numbers are any indication, the Kindle appears to be the first general purpose technology device I know of with an early adopter demographic that favours the over-54 age bracket over the usual 18-34 group, effectively turning one perennial marketing trend on its head."