Amazon Stock Surges This Week, Fueled By Growing E-Book Market

Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares rose an impressive 4 percent on Tuesday, following a note written by Morgan Stanley’s Scott Devitt on his projections of the growing e-book market.

Devitt’s initial estimate of e-book sales was 567 million; however, that number was revised Tuesday to some 859 million for 2012. According to Devitt via Reuters, Amazon’s sales likely counted for about 383 million of those sales. This number represents Amazon’s 45 percent share of the e-book market.

Devitt quoted some recent data provided by Amazon, stating that based on studies, readers were shown to read about 4.6 times more after purchasing an e-reading device than before the purchase. Amazon’s strategy has been to market the devices themselves at near cost, and rely on e-book sales and other apps to make up the profit gap — a strategy, that according to Mr. Devitt, has been working…