Foxconn Electronics, the world's largest contract manufacturer of various electronics, reportedly plans to expand production of electronic book readers by almost two times next year, according to market watchers. This means that the market of e-book readers will develop extremely fast in the coming months, which means lower prices and better quality.

Taiwanese market watchers expect global e-book reader shipments to reach 12 million units in 2010 and predict that 80% or even 90% of them will be made by Foxconn Electronics, reports Apple Daily news-paper (excepts of which article were translated by DigiTimes web-site). According to those analysts, next year the contract manufacturer plans to Double shipments of e-book readers in 2011 and if other companies have similar plans, then the market of electronic book readers next year will grow towards 25 million units.

Smaller manufacturers of e-book readers are also projected to supply a lot of devices this year. Netronix is expected to ship 400 - 600 thousand units in 2010, Qisda may ship around 400 thousand of e-book readers this year, other makers will produce relatively low amounts of electronic book readers. Nonetheless, even small producers will manufacture around a million of e-readers.

Recently In-Stat market research firm increased its e-book reader sales prediction for this year to 12 million units and said that the market will reach 28.5 million in 2013. However, if the information about Foxconn's plans to double shipments of e-book readers already in 2011 is correct, then the e-book market will develop at a pace that is faster than even bold predictions.

Tags: E-Book, Foxconn, Qisda, Netronix