When the dust settles and the sales returns are all in after the 2010 festive season, there’s little doubt that it will have been another record breaking year for the Amazon Kindle reader. In spite of the premature rumors of the Kindle’s imminent demise as a result of the release of the Apple iPad, Amazon’s category leading ebook reader just seems to go from strength to strength.

Even without the introduction of a color screen, the launch of the Kindle 3 in the autumn of 2010 opened the gap between the Kindle and the chasing pack even further. In addition to a host of technical upgrades, including increased memory (enough for up to 3,500 titles), a better contrast display and a smaller and lighter case, Amazon introduced an entry level WiFi only model.

With a retail price of only $ 139, the WiFi only Kindle is less than a third of the price of the cheapest iPad. The 3G plus WiFi model sells for $ 189 – still a long way below the price of even the entry level iPad. The fact that there are no monthly download fees associated with the Kindle remains a big selling point of course.

Another huge attraction about the Kindle has always been the vast number of Kindle books available for download from Amazon’s website. At this time, there are in excess of 750,000 Kindle books on sale via Amazon’s Kindle store. In addition to this, there are a further 1.8 million out of copyright titles – including many classics – which are available for free download.

Becoming “tied” to one brand of reader is a concern for many prospective e-book reader buyers. They feel that having bought a lot of e-books in a particular format, they will be unable to transfer their books should they wish to switch to another e-book reader later.

This issue has been dealt with very well by Amazon who have made a host of free apps available to enable readers to enjoy Kindle books on a variety of different devices. Currently, there are free Kindle apps for the PC, the Mac, the iPad, the iPhone, the Blackberry smart phone, the Windows phone and any device which uses the Android operating system. It’s a clever strategy on Amazon’s part. Not only does it overcome the concerns regarding the transfer of books, but each of these apps effectively acts as another retail outlet for Kindle books. It’s estimated that approximately 20% of Kindle book sales are made using non-Kindle hardware. That percentage will probably continue to grow in future.

As improbable as it may have appeared at certain points throughout the year, 2010 has seen the Kindle reinforce its market dominance even more. The only credible competition to the Kindle comes from a tablet computer which costs more than three times as much as the Kindle – and that tells a story in itself. It will be interesting to see what 2011 brings for the e-book reader market in general – and the Kindle in particular.

Discover the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you customise your reader.