Amazon sold more electronic books than paper books

January 28, 2011.- The Amazon online store reported that “during the last quarter of 2010 sold more electronic books than softcovers paper books in United States.”

In the history of the store, it is the first time that “e-books sales to exceed paperback.”

Amazon’s executive director Jeff Bezos confirmed that “last July he announced that e-books had overtaken the hardcover, as we expected, and that would outweigh the paperbacks in the second quarter of 2011. We have achieved this goal even earlier than expected.”

And “in the last three months of last year we sold 115 eBooks per 100 paperback books.”

These figures exclude free downloads offered by Amazon Books.

Although overall sales fell 9% during the same period, a figure worse than expected.