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On June 30th, Kindle's Chinese e-bookstore ceased its cloud download services, making it impossible for users to download and read e-books that had not been downloaded, and they could no longer download the Kindle App from app stores. Concurrently, Kindle's customer service also halted its support.

However, a month later, the self-maintenance efforts of Kindle's veteran users across the web unexpectedly ignited a new business opportunity for Kindle.

01

Abandoned by the Chinese Market?

In 2007, when Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, officially launched the iPhone at the Macworld conference in San Francisco, Amazon had just introduced the first-generation Kindle e-book reader. These two initially unrelated products later exhibited a seesaw relationship in the market—by 2023, when Apple secured the global smartphone sales championship, Kindle had already shut down its Chinese e-bookstore.

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Rewinding to 2007, the e-ink screen technology used by Kindle unexpectedly combined the experience of paper books with the convenience of e-readers, quickly making it a standout in Amazon's hardware product line. By May 2011, Kindle e-book sales had surpassed the sales of paper books, including hardcovers and paperbacks, indicating its immense popularity.

Initially, Kindle was also unstoppable in the Chinese market. After officially entering China in 2013, within less than three years, China had become the largest market for Amazon's Kindle devices globally. According to Amazon's data, from 2013 to 2018, Kindle sold millions of units in China, and the total number of books in the Kindle China e-bookstore reached 700,000, nearly a tenfold increase from 2013.

However, Amazon's extremely restrained product update pace failed to keep up with the changing reading habits of the Chinese population. According to the "Twenty-First National Reading Survey" released by the China Academy of Press and Publication, nearly 80% of adult nationals read on their mobile phones in 2023, and only 25.3% chose e-readers, a decrease of 1.5 percentage points from the previous year. Among these readers who opted to purchase e-readers separately, Kindle is not necessarily the first choice.

So far, Kindle has only launched nine generations of products, with the latest Kindle Scribe already on the market for two years. Whether it's hardware or software, at the end of the day, they are all "tools" for Amazon to operate its digital store and are by no means high-end products.For long-time users of Kindle for over 5 years and developers of software like EpubKit that convert web pages to e-books, the closed nature of the Kindle system implies a simplicity and singularity of functions. On one hand, the system's smoothness and text reading experience are truly excellent; each generation of products focuses on improving screen clarity, memory, device thinness, battery life, built-in reading lights, and other features directly related to reading. On the other hand, it is too conservative, with the single reading function and eye-friendly e-ink screen that have never changed. For instance, even the 10.2-inch Kindle Scribe can only accept text formats like epub, and the PDF reading and note-taking functions are still "a mess."

"When I want to read some online novels, I have to flash a Duokan system to be compatible with many novels that are not in the Amazon bookstore," confessed Ye Ao, a former Kindle user. Originally, he bought the Kindle to read some "heavyweight" books, but later found that he preferred online novels. Novel apps or Android open systems introduced by Hanvon, Onyx, Xiaomi, Dangdang, and others are obviously more convenient, cheaper, and have more features, "allowing both audiobooks and browsing Zhihu."

When short videos and fragmented reading have turned the soil of electronic reading into a muddy mess, the open or semi-open systems of domestic e-book readers have further impacted Kindle.

After Kindle announced a gradual two-year exit plan in 2022, domestic e-readers seized the opportunity to quickly capture the market. After Kindle announced its departure from China, ZongYue's market share soared to first place, followed closely by Hanvon and Onyx, with the three companies occupying most of the market share. In the first four months of this year, Onyx's online sales volume increased by 49.5% year-on-year, while Hanvon achieved a 65-fold increase, overtaking the competition.

Ye Ao has also been carrying a BOOX Leaf3 from the domestic manufacturer Onyx lately, which runs third-party software like WeChat Reading and Bilibili Comics very smoothly.

02

Long-time users "patch up" by choosing screen replacements

However, it cannot be ignored that Kindle was once the "big brother" in the Chinese market, and until 2021, it still held more than 60% of the Chinese e-reader market share. This means that even if Kindle no longer sells directly in China, the Kindle China e-bookstore ceases operations, or cloud download services are halted, there is still a large number of Kindle users. The considerable number of aging e-book devices also keeps third-party maintenance and repair services thriving.Xiaolian from Shanghai is one of those seeking self-maintenance for her Kindle device. "I've been using a Kindle Oasis purchased in 2016, bought directly from the Amazon website for about 2400 yuan. The only issue after all these years is a crack on the screen, which, although translucent, can still be used with difficulty," she said. As a graduate student majoring in humanities and social sciences, Xiaolian needs to read a lot of content daily, and a simple e-ink reader can meet her reading needs. However, the fragile screen is a source of frustration for her. "The official warranty period is only one year, and my device has definitely exceeded that, plus Amazon's entire Kindle service has been shut down. It's really troublesome to get an official screen replacement."

It is well-known that the screen has always been the most vulnerable part of Kindle devices, with potential damage from compression, drops, or exposure to the sun. In the Kindle community, there are various ways screens can "die," with some cracking from an unintentional squeeze on a sofa, others from a bump with a hard object in a bag, and some from a gentle slide off the edge of a bed.

On the second-hand trading platform Xianyu, the prices of second-hand Kindles did indeed plummet after Kindle officially exited China in June this year. The seventh generation and earlier Kindles are now generally priced at no more than 300 yuan, while the prices for the eighth and ninth generations, which are the Kindle Oasis series, have dropped from 2000 yuan to around 800 yuan.

Purchasing a second-hand replacement seems to be the most cost-effective choice, but on the other hand, the repair business for Kindles is booming, especially the screen replacement service on e-commerce platforms.

The reporter noticed from the search results on e-commerce platforms that merchants offering screen replacement services also charge according to the model, with prices ranging from 100 to 1200 yuan. For Xiaolian's slightly leaky Kindle Oasis 1, a screen replacement can be done for just 260 yuan, which is much cheaper than a second-hand device.

"Although it's not as smooth and sensitive as the original screen, the handwriting function can be used normally, and there will be no data loss," said a user who spent 1200 yuan to replace the screen of their Australian version of the Kindle Scribe. After weighing the pros and cons, they evaluated that although the replaced screen experience is not as good as the original, the price is half the cost of buying a new one through a purchasing agent, and it also saves the trouble of data transfer. "It's still satisfactory." We noticed that on e-commerce platforms, some stores specializing in Kindle screen replacement services have monthly sales exceeding 7000.

As for why they choose to replace the screen instead of buying a second-hand Kindle or another e-reader, the answer from A Ming, the operator of the Kindle community service website "Shuban," may represent the voice of most users.He believes that the Kindle, as a terminal product, can be used as a reader from the outset. The closure of the electronic store and cloud download functions only affects Chinese users' normal use of Amazon's online services, that is, the entire reading ecosystem it provides, such as synchronizing local e-books, Send to Kindle (uploading files to the Kindle library), etc. "But as long as content can be downloaded, the Kindle is useful. A significant reason for not wanting to change devices is that data preservation and transmission are somewhat troublesome."

Currently, Kindle users generally solve the content download issue in two ways: one is to change the region, moving the account to another country or region; the other is to use other methods of file transfer, such as USB hardware device transfer or transfer through the originally registered email. However, changing the region may lead to the loss of backup data content of the Chinese account, and regardless of which region is set, the advantage of Amazon's Chinese books is no longer there. This has also given rise to another third-party service, "e-book finding on behalf of others." Regardless, old users who have an emotional attachment to Kindle will still choose to "patch up and make do for another year."

03

Kindle has not lost in the e-ink screen field

Traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are not suitable for long-term reading, which has prompted the invention of electronic ink screens (e-Paper). Currently, over ninety percent of the electronic paper on the market comes from the same company, namely E-ink from Taiwan, China. Whether it is the latest AI e-paper learning book from Hanvon or the latest Kindle Scribe, they all use the E-Ink Carta series of electronic paper. In terms of the screen alone, Kindle is not as "closed and backward" as it may seem.

The electronic ink screen is composed of a grid made up of millions of capsules, each containing several sub-capsules, each with a small drop of black or white pigment. There is a liquid in the main capsule that allows the sub-capsules to float freely: the black pigment carries a negative charge, while the white pigment carries a positive charge. When a wire at the top of the main capsule is positively charged, it attracts the sub-capsules with black pigment, causing them to float to the top and repel the sub-capsules with white pigment, causing them to sink to the bottom. The arrangement of black and white dots on a white background forms characters and graphics for reading.

These capsules are fixed in a rigid array by a thin transparent plastic panel. When this panel is thin enough, it can be used in conjunction with touch sensors on certain devices, allowing screen control with the fingers—but this is also the "culprit" of the screen's fragility and susceptibility to breakage.

Additionally, the technical principle of the mainstream color electronic ink screens on the market is actually to add an RGB filter layer on the basis of the black and white screen, and the screen brightness will also be slightly darker than the conventional black and white ink screens, which is not a particularly high-end product. Technically speaking, the functionality of all electronic ink screens cannot be compared with liquid crystal screens, but electronic ink screens often account for 40% or even 70% of the cost of the entire reading device. Of course, without the need for reading, even the best ink screen will become a noodle cover.