This holiday season is the "tipping point" for eReaders

No longer an exclusive staple of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple, eReaders are now available at such mainstream outlets as Target, BestBuy, Wal-Mart, Staples and even Walgreens! eReaders are expected to be the gift of choice this holiday season. A recent Consumer Reports poll showed 10 percent of adults surveyed plan to give an e-reader as a gift this year, up from 4 percent in 2009. Forrester research expects the number of eReaders in circulation to increase by 1.3 million by the end of the year pushing total readership to 10.3 million. Research also indicates that 1 in 5 Kindle users received the device as a gift.

“Last year, when you think of the e-reader category, it was Nook and Kindle and Sony, but primarily Nook and Kindle if you look at the sales,” said William Lynch, chief executive of Barnes & Noble. “The difference this year is, there’s a whole lot more choice.”

It will be interesting to see if eBook sales spike on Christmas day as new eReader owners download their first purchases.

More from the NYT here.