Amazon.com Inc. made an online post sharing its position for the dispute with publisher Hachette Book Group, saying that it is “not optimistic” that the disagreements will be resolved any time soon. The company said for itself that it is acting “on behalf of customers”.
Amazon.com said in its post, which was cited by The Wall Street Journal: “Despite much work from both sides, we have been unable to reach mutually-acceptable agreement on terms. Though we remain hopeful and are working hard to come to a resolution as soon as possible, we are not optimistic that this will be resolved soon.” As reported by Bloomberg, Amazon.com Inc. also wrote: “Negotiating for acceptable terms is an essential business practice that is critical to keeping service and value high for customers in the medium and long term.”
This was the first time the company admitted for the disagreement. It became clear that earlier in May 2014, Amazon.com Inc. had arguments with Hachette over the prices of digital books, which resulted in Amazon blocking pre-orders for some of the releases of Hachette Book Group that are yet to come. The confession, on the other hand, provoked criticism that Amazon is acting unfairly towards Hachette, some of whose older titles shipments were delayed by the online retailer.
The conflict between the two companies becomes more serious from the fact that the e-book market is considered a rapidly growing one, which raises the ambitions of both Amazon.com and Hachete. According to Forrester Research, the sales of physical books in the U.S. are expected to decrease from 26 billion dollars in 2010 to 19.5 billion dollars in 2014, while the sales of e-books are projected to increase more than eight times and reach 8.7 billion dollars. This, on the other hand, makes the business segment a highly-competitive one.
One of the Amazons spokeswomen refused to make any comments apart from the companys official statement. The spokeswoman of Hachette Book Group said that she had no immediate comment.
Amazon.com Inc. was 0.45% down to close at 310.82 dollars per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of +18.75%. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 38 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Amazon.com Inc. have a median target of 425.00, with a high estimate of 500.00 and a low estimate of 330.00. The median estimate represents a +36.74% increase from the last price of 310.82.
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