Amazon's e-book downloads surpass book sales

As the popularity of e-book readers continues to grow, online retail giant Amazon is finding that it's shifting more e-books than traditional hardbacks and paperbacks.

The company said that for every 100 books sold on its UK site, around 114 e-books are downloaded.

Amazon's Kindle device is now in its fourth generation. The device allows users to shop online for and download e-books, newspapers, magazine and blogs and read them on a digital display.

The display is designed to simulate reading on paper, minimising eye strain and enabling text to be read even in sunlight.

Although Amazon is not the only e-book manufacturer and there are many other brands on the market, the Kindle is by far the most popular.

But it does face strong competition in the books market from a variety of other stores, so whether these figures are indicative of the market as a whole remains to be seen.